Could you throw one in every of your colleagues under the bus if push got here to shove and also you were left to choose amongst yourselves who got the sack?
That’s what staff at an Italian electrical company were asked to achieve this last month, prompting local media to liken it to something from the dystopian TV series Squid Game.
Greater than 60 employees of Bluergo, which makes spare parts for laundry machines, in Veneto were asked over the Christmas period which colleagues they might lay off in a series of brutal questions.
Amongst them were ‘Who would go away at home? The one without kids?’ and ‘The one who has been employed the shortest time?’, in response to local outlet Ansa reported.
Staff were asked to choose from volunteers, part-time employees, individuals with no family responsibilities and younger employees.
An additional category often called ‘Other’ asked employees to jot down the complete name of the colleagues they thought least deserved to maintain their jobs.
Only ten surveys were accomplished and returned to the corporate.
The move has outraged staff and union members who described the exercise as ‘a cruel game’.
Nonetheless, company boss, Bruno Scapin, backed the questionnaire, insisting it was ‘an internal survey to check the corporate climate’.
He added: ‘The market is in crisis, and our goal is to stop layoffs.’
Meanwhile, the Italian metal employees’ union, often called CGIL trade union, said the survey was a ‘reckless move’ and was ‘an attack on employees’ dignity and an unacceptable manipulation of the solidarity that ought to exist amongst colleagues’.
In a press release, the union added that asking employees to jot down the names of their colleagues had ‘[amplified] the psychological pressure on each individual worker’.
It also said the exercise had transformed ‘an already tense work environment right into a battlefield’.
Manuel Moretto, general secretary of the Treviso branch of the CGIL union, condemned the practice, claiming it undermines employees’ rights.
He said: ‘What we’re witnessing shouldn’t be only an absence of respect for employees, but an try to disintegrate the social fabric of an organization.
‘In a time of difficulty, unity must be the reply, not division.
‘These methods don’t even represent democratic consultation. We is not going to allow employees to be forced to play this humiliating game.’
He added that Bluergo staff have called for an urgent meeting after describing the corporate’s line of questioning as a ‘dangerous trend’.
While we await further developments, we urge all employees to stay united, avoid supporting this unacceptable move, and make their voices heard. Solidarity and cohesion are our greatest weapons against these unfair and destructive practices,’ he said.
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