Experts estimate the turnover of illegal labor in Germany at 370 billion euros. While politicians have been seeking ways out of the crisis for years, reports Deutsche Welle, employees of financial and other departments are trying to catch illegal immigrants.
The Düsseldorf municipality received an anonymous report that people receiving social benefits are working on Ruhrtalstrasse, where a residential building is undergoing major renovation, and are doing illegal side jobs. It was decided to check this site. A total of seven people are involved in the operation, three of them women. All their weapons are handcuffs, pepper spray canisters, and walkie-talkies. If they meet resistance, they will have to call the police for backup.
Illegal workers can be divided into two categories: first, foreigners who do not have a work permit in Germany, and second, German residents who receive social benefits or unemployment benefits while working illegally.
When the inspectors arrived at the construction site, they had to call for reinforcements - the building turned out to have several exits. At the signal, a document check begins: "Do you have an ID with you? Let's go to the second floor and have a look. Which health insurance fund are you insured with? Do you receive social benefits or unemployment benefits? And what do you do here?"
Meanwhile, noise arises in the neighboring apartment: "Wait, please... Stand here. Turn to face the wall!" Two plasterers tried to run away but did not offer resistance. They are handcuffed anyway until the police arrive. "Where are you from? From Poland? Do you have a visa, a work permit? Or are you tourists?"
Neither of the two Poles has a work permit. They either really do not know who their employer is or do not want to say. And suddenly both stop understanding German - at the police station they will be interrogated with an interpreter. Both face deportation from Germany with confiscation of earned money. Passport data was taken from all the other 13 builders. Along the way, it turned out that the entire company was working illegally. "From what we have established so far, it is clear that the company is not registered in the register of craft enterprises. In any case, it does not have a license for the work," explains the raid leader, Georg Krüger. For tax evasion, the owner of the company now faces at least a high fine. The tax inspectorate still needs to figure out who to charge: it turns out that several subcontractors were involved at the construction site.
The workers themselves have a positive attitude toward such checks, at least in conversation with a journalist. "Actually, I think it should be this way. Because illegal workers undercut the rates," says one of them. "I understand they also need to live. But they undercut my hourly wages."
Georg Krüger holds the same opinion. Moreover, he does not condemn foreign illegal workers: it is not from a good life that they agree to work for pennies. It is a different matter for German residents who receive state benefits and work illegally on the side. In total, they often end up with even more money than those who work legally and pay taxes properly.
"For the whole of Düsseldorf, the group for combating illegal work has only four or five permanent employees. What conclusion suggests itself? Probably, neither at the federal level nor in our city does anyone really want to seriously fight this type of crime," Krüger admits. But as long as working illegally is more profitable than legally, it is unlikely that police or administrative measures alone will help solve the problem.