cooking, dishwashing, kitchen cleaning. Drugs bring, shopping, Ironing. The customer accompany: to the doctor, to drink coffee, in the evenings at home. As an old supervisor in Germany, Dobrina D. had their hands full. And with “Good night” was not your day yet. Often the Bulgarian had to get up several times a night to change diapers or to provide further medications.
The 96-year-old German Elderly woman had Dobrina D. always at your side. Finally, the Bulgarian lived in her apartment. “I had to be available 24 hours. There were no free days, time for myself, I had,” said Dobrina D. Today, she is 69 years old and back in Bulgaria. The reminder of the year 2015, as she used to in Berlin the Elderly woman, not let her go: “My company cheated on me.”
According to the labour contract with the Bulgarian Agency of Dobrina D. should only work six hours a day. For this time, she was also paid: 950, – Euro net.
she moved into Germany before the court: The employer must pay her € 42,000. The sum corresponds to the standby time of around-the-clock, should also be the minimum wage paid, decided by the labour court in Berlin, in the first instance. The Bulgarian Agency was on appeal. The trial in the second instance, begins on the 16. July.
Many of the know your rights
Justyna Oblacewicz from the German trade Union Federation (DGB) is the “insanely curious” on the judgment. For over four years, the Berlin-based Polish, Eastern European people, especially women advises, which is estimated to maintain to keep the 300,000 seniors in the German house. Stories like that of Dobrina D. listen to you every day.
“We are very happy to complain that, finally, someone has dared,” says Oblacewicz. There are many reasons why this happened only now, although it is a source of years of complaints. The supervisors were only clamped briefly in Germany, completely, speak little English and do not know their rights.
Many people have a fear of termination. The rumors that troublemakers would have a kind of “black list” and never be set again, were all known in the industry. The DGB and Oblacewicz support Dobrina D. before the court. They hope their example could be followed by many other carers.
border between work and leisure
a blur to the model of the supervisor from abroad the income power differentials and Posting of workers within the EU to Use. Practically it works like this: A Polish supervisor completes the contract with a Polish recruitment Agency, the German family with a German Agency. The two companies conclude a contract among themselves. The supervisor then comes to Germany for one to three months. After deduction of the commissions they earned on average about 1300 euros net per month.
Justyna Oblacewicz sees the agencies as the beneficiaries of this model: “you carry the lowest risk and have great flexibility. And the suffering at the end of the support forces, which are false self-employment in the German households are engaged”. Because behind four walls in the families, the boundaries between work, standby and rest time are blurred.
In talks with the DW reports several women that you will get problems if you call for leisure. If conflicts arise, they will sit at the shorter end. Often, you need to look for in a short time, a new place of work.
carers from Eastern Europe, indispensable
bear the idea of 24-hour care in your name: Lebenshilfe24, PeopleCare24, wecare24. Thus, the expectation of a 24-hour supply is brought. But the agencies reject the debt.Frederic Seebohm, the Association for home care and nursing says: “It is a tough competition and the customers expect unfortunately, this formulation with the number 24 in their name.”
What Oblacewicz and Seebohm match: The German government has pulled back from the issue of home care for the elderly. And the acute shortage of nurses makes Alternatives, such as switching to out-patient care, difficult to implement.
The Germans were instructed to provide through the support of people from Eastern Europe, old people, says Frederic Seebohm: “There is no other way”. He warns that a large majority of the managers working inside anyway even without a contract, and is not protected.
Justyna Oblacewicz not take a deep breath: “If this verdict does nothing to make working conditions in the industry, then I don’t know what is.”
Dobrina D. observed the process from home in Nessebar on the Bulgarian black sea coast. She is optimistic: “I would like to show my colleagues, and everyone else, that we have duties and rights that we defend.” With the back Pay they want to provide their grandchildren a good education. You should not have to toil as low-wage workers in the West.
author: Grzegorz Szymanowski, Luisa von Richthofen
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*The post “Bulgarian nurse settles with German care industry,” published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
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