Working in Frankfurt

The com­pul­sion to work pre­ca­riously

Peo­ple who migrate to Ger­many and/or are racia­li­zed ⊕ are often forced to take pre­ca­rious jobs and to demand their labour rights again and again. At the same time, they are under grea­ter pres­sure to con­form to society’s ideal of per­for­mance, as their life in Ger­many is not taken for gran­ted. This mani­fests its­elf, for exam­ple, in the fact that they are repea­tedly pres­su­red to explain and jus­tify their »being here« and their family history at work, at school or in ever­y­day situa­tions. Moreo­ver, resi­dence per­mits are often lin­ked to a spe­ci­fic employ­ment rela­ti­onship and alre­ady exis­ting degrees or know­ledge are not reco­g­nised. Various eco­no­mic, racist and/or sexist struc­tures thus impede indi­vi­dual efforts to build a bet­ter life or make it unat­tainable because access to edu­ca­tion or lan­guage acqui­si­tion is dif­fi­cult. You can find more on this in our sta­tion to the aut­ho­rity for for­eig­ners.

Espe­ci­ally in the low-wage sec­tor in the hotel and cate­ring indus­try or care work, the workload often exceeds phy­si­cal and psy­cho­lo­gi­cal limits. Often, appli­ca­ble labour laws are not respec­ted and the wage is often barely enough to make ends meet. Many peo­ple do not want to work under these con­di­ti­ons — at the same time, many workers are wan­ted in these sec­tors. The labor-mar­ket test is thus a state tool to force peo­ple into these jobs and to limit their room for mano­eu­vre.

Cri­ses and grey areas 

In the wake of cri­ses, such as the glo­bal eco­no­mic cri­sis of 2008 or as a result of the Covid-19 pan­de­mic, it can be obser­ved once again that wage employ­ment rela­ti­onships in the above-men­tio­ned sec­tors are often very pre­ca­rious and peo­ple in these sec­tors often lose their jobs first. Even more pre­ca­rious are those who live and work in ille­ga­li­sed or infor­mal employ­ment due to their legally assi­gned sta­tus. Here, the boun­da­ries bet­ween legal and ille­ga­li­sed ⊕ employ­ment are often blur­red and peo­ple are stuck in grey areas. For exam­ple, some com­pa­nies exploit peo­ple in an undo­cu­men­ted employ­ment rela­ti­onship while the prio­rity check of the employ­ment con­tract by the aut­ho­ri­ties is ongo­ing. This can fur­ther under­mine alre­ady low stan­dards of working con­di­ti­ons or pay.

Actively oppo­sing these con­di­ti­ons 

Many peo­ple do not accept this situa­tion and become active and defend them­sel­ves: they form net­works in which they exch­ange infor­ma­tion about employ­ers, think about stra­te­gies against bad employ­ers and tell each other about new jobs. Pro­ject Shel­ter also offers such a net­work. While the group fights for a self-mana­ged migrant centre (this fight is descri­bed in the sta­tion Para­dies­hof), the acti­vists also empower them­sel­ves in work­shops on union orga­ni­s­ing and labour law, or sup­port each other in (legal) dis­pu­tes with employ­ers and exch­ange infor­ma­tion about them