Germany roughs up the law for Albanians fighting in black

Under the fight against black work and illegal employment, 111,000 prosecution proceedings have been opened. This is a number that has also increased compared to 2017 (108 000).

More Controls in the Future

The number of workers in black, however, is much larger, but Germany's customs lack the capacity to fight this phenomenon properly.

This policy deficit is now trying to fix with a new bill, which German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, (SPD) has passed into the government and now expects to be approved by Bundestag. The new “Law opens the way for more finds of this type: It puts more control and increased entity personnel into the number of special customs unit personnel” available, Scholz said during the presentation of annual statistics of the Customs Ent, early this week in Berlin.

Protests by Unions

Black work is also a theme of German unions. The German trade unions' union (DGB) has sought heavier sentences for cases of minimum wage violations. “The employers who do not abide by the law no longer take advantage of public sector tenders”, have indicated, among other things, the chairman of the DGB board, Stefan Corsell, in an interview for the media group Funke. Corsell said this should be true even of those cases when the law is not violated by the recipient of the tender itself, but by another entrepreneur working on his own behalf.

Likewise, the industrial union of the construction, agriculture, and environment sector, IG Bau, had expressed itself. Robert Faiger, chief of this union, requires increased police personnel in these entities.

The number of customs officers currently fighting illegal employment across Germany is 6700. In 2017 the damage employment has caused to the state ark by avoiding additional wages has amounted to a billion euros.

Albanians Arrested

But even customs checks are costly shares: The latest action to take place on the island of Rugen of the Baltic Sea on Wednesday (27.03). )

Two policemen surprised the construction of several buildings by the sea at the site called Prora. Six policemen had also been with them, and according to the newspaper Ossee Zeitung, the police even introduced a helicopter to oversee the action.

As a result, 11 Albanian workers were caught, who not only worked in black but had no residence permits. The action was conducted under investigation into the three persons who had brought out of Albania specifically workers to work in construction. They've been bugged by police since last year.

Along with the construction site in Prora, there were additional raids on Lauterbach, Lussa near Stralsund and Hamburg, and two residences were searched in Binz. Two of the traffickers were from Germany, the third from Macedonia. One of them was caught in police control. Eleven captured Albanians have been ordered to leave Germany within seven days.