Last week, another documentary criticized the living and working conditions of production employees in Germany’s largest slaughterhouse, Tönnies. What has really changed since Clemens Tönnies announced a “revolution”?
Last week the broadcaster Sat.1 published an investigative documentary about the living and working circumstances of the mostly foreign production employees at the Tönnies slaughterhouse. The film was not viewed with goodwill everywhere. The presentation seemed too unbalanced for some viewers, the tone tendentious. The Tönnies company itself felt compelled to make a statement before it was broadcast, in which “disavowing allegations without reference to facts” are criticized. A confrontation between the company – actually a journalistic standard – did not take place either.
The production does indeed have a boulevard-esque effect in parts, but it also raises other questions. In June 2020, after the Corona outbreak at the plant in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, company boss Clemens Tönnies announced that he would “change the industry”. Air filters were installed to protect against the coronavirus, the production employees, mostly from Eastern European countries, had to be employed on a permanent basis, as poorly paid work contracts through dubious subcontractors were banned.
But a WDR documentary already revealed a few weeks ago: the meat manufacturer is still working with subcontractors. So was that the “revolution of an entire industry”?
Cooperation with subcontractors continues
Not at all, explains Tönnies company spokesman Fabian Reinkemeier at the request of the star: “The employees in production are all permanently employed by us, not by subcontractors.” There is still a cooperation with the former contractors. However, these would only help when recruiting new employees, for example in Eastern European countries – as an interim solution. “We want to do it ourselves in the medium term,” continues Reinkemeier, but as long as the recruiting is not completely in-house, the company would need experts in this field.
According to WDR, entrepreneurs like the Romanian Dumitru Miculescu are aggressively recruiting people from Eastern Europe – especially because of the comparatively high wages in Germany compared to the wage structures in Romania or Bulgaria, for example. According to Tönnies, employees in production earn between EUR 9.60, the statutory minimum wage, for auxiliary work and EUR 20 for highly qualified tasks and thus at least three times what is paid in Romania, for example. In addition, these entrepreneurs are responsible for the transport of workers and the control of living space, as Clemens Tönnies explains in an interview with the WDR.
Housing the production workers continues to raise questions
It is precisely this living space that keeps making headlines. As early as the 1980s, reports documented untenable conditions in the accommodations of Tönnies employees. During the Corona outbreak in June 2020, it became clear how many employees live in a confined space when almost 7,000 people in Gütersloh and the surrounding area had to be quarantined. All of that should be a thing of the past. The company has bought, renovated and rented several hundred apartments at fixed standards for 210 euros per person per month.
The problem with this is that the company only has around 4700 places available. This means that less than 30 percent of employees could live in these apartments. The rest is housed in private accommodation. That is also the reason for higher rental costs, explains Reinkemeier. In its documentation, the WDR published a rental agreement between a Tönnies employee and the Besselmann company – actually a cleaning company that works for Tönnies. The rent in this apartment was around 300 euros. Reinkemeier emphasizes that it is fundamentally a personal right to conclude the rent with private landlords. They try to find as many employees as possible in their own apartments. In the said case, Besselmann was able to be persuaded to lower the rent to the Tönnies-internal sum of 210 euros – but that a landlord gets involved is the exception.
Landlords are still taking advantage of the employees’ dependency
For the often non-German-speaking workforce, this can become a problem. Because it is precisely those companies that rent out apartments at higher prices, supposedly broker them immediately after the workers arrive in Germany – due to the lack of alternatives, many apparently opt for such an apartment.
Reinkemeier emphasizes that this is only an offer, not a mediation. It is also possible to move to a cheaper Tönnies apartment later. Whether the production workers do this is up to them. Tönnies couldn’t really care less, “that’s exactly what it’s not,” says Reinkemeier. The company defends itself against this allegation, since they want employees to stay with the company for a long time. With a lower fluctuation one also has the possibility to offer better quality in the company.
Another recurring point of criticism of various reports is the working hours in Tönnies’ production. Employees complained that shifts of ten hours or even more are not uncommon, sometimes even common practice. Some even claimed that overtime was not paid.
When asked what the actual working hours are, the company gave an evasive answer. In principle, the daily working time should not exceed eight hours, but it can be extended to ten hours as long as the average working time does not exceed eight hours a day within six months or 24 weeks – this is legally stipulated, whether this is actually implemented remains open from the company side. Basically, however, every hour worked at Tönnies is paid, according to Reinkemeier. This statement cannot be verified.
Old strategy – new systems?
The entire slaughter industry in general and Tönnies in particular came into the public eye again after the Corona outbreak in June 2020 at the latest. In retrospect, Clemens Tönnies decided to flee forwards: ask for an excuse, address problems openly, vow to improve. A year and a half after his announcement to “change the industry”, one or the other thing has actually happened: the minimum wage at least mitigated the exploitative conditions – even if the state and not Tönnies was responsible for this. A word that is often used at Tönnies is “transformation process”. To be fair, a company has to be granted that it cannot change structures that are decades old overnight – this takes time. However, there are fundamental patterns that hardly differ from those before 2020.
But instead of working with windy subcontractors, for example in the area of housing brokerage, the company now calls it employee responsibility. Everyone has the right to decide how and where they live – that is out of the question. When this personal responsibility becomes a dependent relationship, however, remains open.
Sources: Sat.1 documentation, Tönnie’s opinion, WDR Documentation