Berlin From October, the earnings threshold for marginal employment is to be raised from EUR 450 to EUR 520 per month. Mini-jobbers should also be able to benefit from the planned increase in the minimum wage. However, Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) has included another project in the associated draft law that is likely to meet with resistance.
In the future, strict rules for recording working hours will not only apply to mini-jobbers. Heil also wants to oblige employers in the eleven sectors listed in the Act to Combat Clandestine Employment to “record the start, end and duration of work electronically and in a tamper-proof manner on the day of work” and to save the data. This would affect employment-intensive sectors such as the construction or hospitality industry, building cleaning or security services.
There is now contradiction to the project: “The specifications for the digitization of working time records are far removed from operational reality and cannot actually be implemented,” says the statement of the Federal Guild Association of the building cleaning trade, which is available to the Handelsblatt.
The around 700,000 employees in the industry are employed in more than 100,000 objects every day. But one can hardly expect that the customers – from the small doctor’s office to the large industrial company – will install their own time recording terminals for the cleaning crews.
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The situation is similar in the construction and finishing trades, for example if a customer’s bathroom is to be tiled or construction workers are deployed to different construction sites.
For employees with constantly changing locations, such as building cleaners, central recording systems are not practical.
(Photo: imago images / Frank Sorge)
“Of course, we are not opposed to working documentation, but it must also be practical to use,” says Heribert Jöris, Managing Director of Social and Collective Bargaining at the German Construction Industry Association (ZDB). Since a central recording is difficult with changing locations, the only option is to use mobile devices such as cell phones.
>> Read here: Extra work should be worthwhile for mini-jobbers – at the expense of the company
However, these would have to be procured by the employers, since the use of private devices is prohibited for data protection reasons, according to the statements by the construction industry and building cleaners. This causes considerable additional costs. Since mobile recording systems usually also allow other uses such as determining the location of the employee, conflicts with works councils are foreseeable.
In the case of building cleaners – with their high proportion of mini-jobbers of almost 32 percent – electronic working time recording that is accurate to the minute harbors the risk that the income threshold of 520 euros per month is unknowingly exceeded. Social security contributions would then have to be paid.
The precise recording of hourly surcharges is also complicated if, as is the case with scaffolders, for example, they are only incurred when a certain number of overtime hours has accumulated in the working time account.
Because of the problems described, “it should basically remain the same as before for mobile activities without fixed business premises, a deadline for the documentation of working hours and times subject to supplements,” demands Jöris. Employers currently have seven days to do this.
Greens do not understand business associations – FDP is surprised by Heil’s initiative
The Ministry of Labor justifies the complete digital recording of working hours, among other things, with the aim of preventing manipulation when calculating the minimum wage. In addition, with the planned step, Heil could implement a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), at least in some sectors.
In May 2019, in a Spanish case, the latter decided that employers must set up a system with which the daily working hours worked by each employee can be measured.
As a result, a dispute broke out between the then Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) and Heil as to whether the judgment also required a change in the law in Germany. But nothing happened in the past legislative period.
“Recording working hours is important so that every hour of work is actually paid for,” says Beate Müller-Gemmeke, the rapporteur for the rights of workers in the Greens parliamentary group. She cannot understand the excitement of the trade associations: “In times of digitization, electronic time recording is the normal instrument for this.” So the documentation is not a problem at all.
More on the ECJ judgment and the subsequent debate in Germany
The labor market and social policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Pascal Kober, on the other hand, was surprised, whose party had campaigned for raising the mini-job threshold. The SPD, Greens and FDP agreed in the coalition agreement to prevent violations of labor law through “more effective legal enforcement” of “current” law.
In addition, the three parties have set themselves the goal of simplifying processes and rules and giving entrepreneurs more time for their actual tasks. “The introduction of new documentation requirements would therefore require explanation,” says Kober.
The Federal Association of the Construction Industry takes a similar view in its statement: the obligation to record daily working time digitally appears “as pure patronizing of the broad masses of medium-sized craft businesses through ‘more’ instead of ‘less’ bureaucracy”.
More: Working Hours Act: Breaks, rest periods and overtime are regulated by law