“In the 2022 season, the situation changed fundamentally due to the Ukraine war.”
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The working conditions of foreign seasonal workers in German agriculture are often worse than the law allows. Harald Schaum, deputy federal chairman of the industrial trade union Bau-Agrar-Umwelt (IG Bau), speaks of “unsustainable conditions” in agriculture.
But the 2022 seasonal report, which the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), IG Bau and their cooperation partners presented on Friday, also shows that politicians are concerned with the situation of workers.
The approximately 135,000 seasonal workers accounted for around a third of the workforce employed in agriculture in 2021. More recent figures are not yet available. The most important country of origin is Romania: almost 70,000 employees came from there in 2021. According to the Federal Employment Agency, around 36,000 workers had a Polish passport and almost 4,000 a Ukrainian one.
“Reliable socio-economic data that say more about the living conditions and the social situation of seasonal workers are rare,” says the report of the Initiative Faire Landarbeit, a trade union-related alliance that advises seasonal workers and informs them about their situation.
The authors write that the number of employees from non-EU countries has increased in recent years. “In the 2022 season, the situation changed fundamentally as a result of the Ukraine war.” Significantly more Ukrainians are now working in agriculture. Many were hired as interns or mini-jobbers and were therefore paid comparatively poorly.
Union criticizes insufficient customs controls
Customs inspections, which ensure that workers’ rights are protected and workers are paid the minimum wage, are rare, according to IG Bau. Employers should “hardly expect someone to keep an eye on them,” says DGB board member Anja Piel.
This also has structural reasons, because the authorities of the countries and customs have to work together more efficiently for the controls. According to Piel, an “interface problem” can be observed here, which meant that only 1.1 percent of the companies were checked in 2021.
According to documents from the German Bundestag, most minimum wage violations in 2021 were found in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.
Most illegal stays were registered in Baden-Württemberg: Here 106 employees could not produce a permit. There were 20 cases in Schleswig-Holstein and fewer than ten in all other federal states.
IG Bau: Must inform workers before leaving for Germany
According to the initiative’s report, an improvement in the legal situation can be observed in some places. Problems with wages or working conditions could change in the coming years in favor of the employees. What the experts expect:
- The gradual increase in the statutory minimum wage from EUR 8.50 in 2016 to EUR 12 now also goes down well with seasonal workers. However, “the increase to twelve euros per hour in October 2022 will only be felt in the 2023 harvest season,” says the report. At the same time, the recording of working hours poses a problem: a basic wage is often paid, which is then supplemented by piecework wages – i.e. per quantity. “That makes things very confusing,” explains Piel. In addition, there is often a lack of tamper-proof time recording.
- Since January 2022, employers must report the insured status of all employees. “In recent years, short-term workers have often worked without any health insurance,” the authors write. In the first four weeks of work, short-term employees are also not entitled to sick pay. In several cases, they were sent home immediately when they were ill and were left with the costs that had already been incurred.
- The law on transparent and predictable working conditions, which came into force in Germany in August 2022, provides, among other things, for employees to be given more detailed information about wages, working and rest periods, and notice periods. According to Schaum, this must be done before the trip to Germany: “Of course, it becomes much more difficult the further away the respective country of origin is.” According to the report, people from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in particular asked more for advice.
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