Chancellor Angela Merkel is shocked by the working conditions in the German meat industry. In a few days, Employment Minister Hubertus Heil will announce measures for the sector.
Minister Heil said in a Bundestag debate that he wants to clean up the sector. “We can no longer stand by while people from Bulgaria and Romania are being exploited here.”
Last week, multiple coronavirus outbreaks were reported at slaughterhouses. The workers, many of whom are Eastern European seasonal workers, are mostly housed in group accommodations where they live very close together. According to many politicians, the problem is that these workers are not employed directly by the slaughterhouses but work through subcontractors.
Minister Heil said that in recent years there have been too many budget cuts on labor condition inspections. He wants to set agreements on better controls and said that more staff must also be made available for this purpose.
In the village of Coesfeld, due to the coronavirus outbreak, the easing of restrictions on going out cannot yet take place. Restaurants were supposed to reopen on Monday, but that did not happen. All more than a thousand employees of the company Westfleisch have been tested: at least 260 employees are infected. The company closed on Friday.
At the slaughterhouse Vion in Bad Bramstedt, 122 Covid-19 infections have been linked. The state of Schleswig-Holstein is testing all employees of all slaughterhouses. All personnel living in the Segeberg municipality have been quarantined and the residential facility in Kellinghusen, a former Federal Army barracks, is also under quarantine. North Rhine-Westphalia is also testing all slaughterhouse personnel, amounting to 20,000 employees.