[ad_1]
The parcel delivery industry is always at full capacity at Christmas time, but the situation is dire in these Corona times. It’s a tiring job for the delivery man, and mostly underpaid. What is politics doing?
By Thomas Kreutzmann and Giselle Ucar, ARD capital studio
In the morning at 6 o’clock in the “Go! Express und Logistics” distribution center in Berlin: package after package, package and package arrive on the distribution belt and are then manually balanced on the waiting delivery vehicles.
The industry always works at full capacity before Christmas, but this year the situation is already dire due to the lockdown and the consequent increase in demand among online retailers.
21 million packages per day
Around four billion packages are likely to be distributed in Germany this year. Now, just before Christmas, it’s 21 million a day. The parcel shipping industry is booming. Five large and thousands of small shipping service providers with several hundred thousand employees make their living. On the one hand, it is a “work machine” for unskilled workers who otherwise struggle in the labor market. On the other hand, it is also a tiring job for distributors and delivery men.
One of them is Patrick. Your name is really different, but you don’t want your real name or place of residence to be published. Compared to the ARD capital study describes sometimes oppressive conditions: “It is hard work, some packages weigh 40 kilos. There are many packages, there is a lot of stress. Always going up and down the stairs. Without rest for hours and when I have to go out I pee in a bottle.”
Crown concerns
At his company, according to Patrick, drivers would have to deliver packages they couldn’t handle the next day and sometimes also take care of another 30.40 packages if colleagues were sick. Then your deliveries would be distributed to the other drivers.
In addition, the pandemic makes work difficult: “I am worried about Corona. Sometimes I have to handle 250 packages a day and I meet at least 200 customers. That is quite dangerous for me. And I also have my wife and the two children. “
Liable for damages?
Why don’t you quit your job? You need the money, says Patrick. But he also fears recourse claims from the employer. His colleagues surprisingly faced additional claims of hundreds of euros when they left the company because their packages were damaged or had disappeared six months earlier.
It is common for package delivery people to be directly responsible. Several hundred euros have already been deducted from your monthly salary due to a damaged package with a technical device.
Bad working conditions, little money
The Left Party criticizes the poor working conditions in the parcel industry. “The salary level is also low,” says group co-leader Amira Mohamed Ali. Furthermore, the minimum wage is partially circumvented through the interposition of subcontractors.
Based on the internal rates of the largest companies, wages are now significantly higher than ten years ago. But they are still mostly, not always, well below the average income, which is around 2,600 euros gross in Germany.
Many drivers and delivery men – depending on the employer – earn an hourly wage of twelve to 17 euros, the average gross monthly income is between 1900 and 2700 euros a month, but beginners can also be much lower.
That’s too little, says Christina Dahlhaus, director of the communications union DPV. If employers reject a higher wage level, the state must intervene: “The minimum wage law must be changed. It must be simplified to conclude industry-specific minimum wages.”
But the Federal Minister of Labor has legal instruments to set higher minimum wages in sectors with generally too low wages and low collective bargaining coverage. But for this to happen, special conditions must be given, which undoubtedly some experts in the parcel industry do not see. In 2010, the Federal Ministry of Labor finally failed in its attempt to set a minimum wage of 9.80 euros for postal couriers after a lawsuit filed by PIN-AG in the Federal Administrative Court.
Law against social security fraud
In the parcel industry, Federal Labor Minister Heil enforced massive opportunities to intervene against social security fraud for a year with the Subcontractor Liability Act. Consistent with this, general contractors in the parcel industry are responsible for the fact that subcontractors actually pay all social security contributions for their parcel drivers correctly.
For the Left Party, that is only the least the federal government can do for industry. Because some employers not only evade social security contributions, but also allow Eastern European drivers to work overtime without paying them. In doing so, they even push wages below the legal minimum wage. Critics call for even more controls through the “financial control of undeclared work” at customs.
Violations of the minimum wage law
The Labor Minister himself, Heil, sees violations of applicable law in every sixth employment relationship in the parcel industry after random checks. The SPD politician promises: “We will enforce law and order in the labor market.”
Most recently, a nationwide focus test was conducted in September for the parcel industry. In this context, 25 violations of the minimum wage law were identified. So far, a total of 49 criminal proceedings and 101 administrative proceedings have been initiated for infringement. According to the responsible Federal Ministry of Finance, the customs administration will receive almost 8,000 additional posts by 2029 tagesschau.de, including nearly 200 new jobs next year.
More controls are required
Marten Bosselmann from the Federal Association of Parcel and Express Logistics welcomes the tough approach: “We are prepared, we are fighting together with the Federal Ministry of Labor for fair working conditions and against the black sheep.” Bosselmann accepts that controls mean taking documentation obligations particularly seriously, which in turn entails bureaucratic costs.
On the contrary, the unions are demanding much more frequent checks against legal infractions by parcel services. Greens and leftists in the Bundestag are calling for daily working hours to be recorded, as well as a licensing requirement for parcel couriers, similar to what applies to postal delivery companies. This leave could be withdrawn again in case of violations of applicable law for the protection of employees.
You can see more about this in the report from Berlin at 18:05 in the first.
