Taken from the executive summary of Alex Weltin’s research project undertaken as part of the Australian National Internships Program. Link to the full report available below
The German meat industry has long been known for the precarious conditions under which its production employees are working. The affected workers are almost always posted workers. The recent Covid-19 outbreak at the Tönnies meat factory in Gütersloh and the scandalous working conditions which necessitated the outbreak are only the most recent instance. But this problem is not just limited to Germany and the meat industry. It is an EU- wide problem facing many industries. As such, scholars have been suggesting explanations for how these precarious working conditions can emerge, despite existing EU and national legislative frameworks, investigating places as varied as German, Swedish, and Dutch construction, the aforementioned German meat industry and even Finnish shipbuilding.
In my view, the contention emerging from this is how the existing policies on posted work have been undermined to create such precarious working conditions and whether there have been adequate policy responses. To that end, this research seeks to answer those questions using the German meat industry as a case study precisely because it is so scandal-ridden and, thus, at the centre of attention for policy makers. It draws on the relevant pieces of legislation, EU and German government reports and releases, private sector reports as well as evidence found in secondary literature. Considering such a wide range of sources should place its findings and corresponding argument on a solid footing but only for the case studied, of course:
As meat sells through price the meat industry has incentive to cut cost and utilises posted work to replace permanent staff allows the industry to do so. This undermines the policy idea behind posted work which was to allow businesses to accommodate short-term staff shortages and is possible because the relevant legislation only grants posted workers minimum entitlements. Thus, they are cheaper than local workers. Precarious working conditions are the result of those cost minimisation efforts but are enabled by inefficient enforcement of existing rules and posted workers’ inherent vulnerability. Enforcement is inefficient because assigning liability for breaches of regulations is difficult due to complex subcontracting chains, while the responsible enforcement agency is facing shrinking resources. Posted workers are exploitable because the prospect of higher wages makes precarious working conditions an acceptable risk and the cost of fighting for their rights is often higher than simply quitting the job. EU and German legislators have recognised these problems but only Germany unilaterally banning posted work in meat production might fix the problem for the meat industry, although none empower posted workers to fight for their rights themselves.
