Degrading living and working conditions: in Germany today, these problems should have disappeared, after a ban on subcontracting in the meat processing industry was introduced in the country in 2021. However, along the border with the Netherlands, a new scheme to rip off workers has now been established: brokers providing staff from abroad have bought and rented properties in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on a large scale – that is where the workers are housed, an investigation by the German public -legal media SWR. But these workers do not work in Germany, but in the Netherlands.
Gaps in the legal system
In the Netherlands, foreign workers work for the intermediaries. And although they live in Germany, the ban on subcontractors in the meat processing industry does not affect them. On the other hand, by placing them in housing in Germany, the intermediaries avoid the strict control of Dutch labor law. The result: miserable working conditions with exorbitant rents and random evictions.
“At the moment, the intermediary companies make the most from housing and transport,” trade unionist Pagonis Pagonakis told SWR. “Workers pay on average between 350 and 400 euros for a mattress. They are also charged another 50 euros for transport costs to the workplace. This is how the intermediary companies make their biggest profits.”
The treatment of workers is brutal
The authors of SWR TV’s Report Mainz, who worked on the investigation, have Dutch employment contracts under which rent and transport charges are deducted directly from wages. Investigations by German media also reveal that hired workers often do not have written rental contracts.
Sascha Rülfs, who is an employee of an aid organization close to the border, says that homeless workers were constantly encountered in the region, as the loss of a job led to immediate eviction. The workers did not know their rights, were very frightened and felt a great deal of fear, he told SWR.
This is confirmed by the account of the Romanian worker Eugen (name changed), with whom the reporters of the German media spoke immediately before his departure for Romania. “I was sick and I couldn’t work. The coordinator told me that I had to come anyway, but I couldn’t. Then he ordered me: ‘Get your things together’. He threatened me that if I didn’t leave, he would kill me with my own hands. I asked him ‘Where shall I go?’. It was night and I had no money.”
Workers are exposed to brutal treatment by employers, says trade unionist Pagonakis.
A new law without sufficient effectiveness
Last year, numerous investigations were launched in Germany against the degrading living conditions of wage workers. The government in North Rhine-Westphalia even passed a law on the basis of which the authorities would have to be informed if a home was being used to house temporary workers in it. However, the authorities do not have enough information about the actual number of people living in a particular dwelling, nor can they determine whether fire safety rules, building regulations and accommodation requirements according to the labor protection law are being followed, SWR explained, citing a local authority spokesman .
Lawyer Klaus Koerner, who voluntarily advises the wage workers, told SWR: “Those who sublet the flats at inflated rents can receive penalties of between six months and ten years. But that’s not enough, because the workers don’t complain – they are deterred from do it, even with violence – if necessary”.
The material has been published HERE>>
