Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
The works council of Deutsche Post's service office in Flensburg has been informed of its closure which will happen by the end of August 2019. The closure will affect 130 workers. The United Services Union (Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, ver.di) strongly criticises Deutsche Post saying that this might be a move related to ver.di's call for the application of the sectoral collective agreement. The union wants to organize protests against the plans.
Currently, Deutsche Post pays little more than the statutory minimum wage (since 1 January 2018 it is € 9.19) and according to ver.di has outsourced service operations to national and foreign sub-contractors.
Eurofound (2018), Deutsche Post, Closure in Germany, factsheet number 96312, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/96312.