For only 145 instead of 400 euros per day? Freight forwarding companies in Germany are urgently looking for truck drivers. And dubious companies offer foreign personnel at dumping prices. They often do not have valid licenses.
For several years, the highway police in Nuremberg have had a special police department - probably the only one of its kind in all of Germany. It works mainly at night and checks only trucks. The goal is to identify violations of permitted working hours, securing the cargo and safety on the road, reports the German public broadcaster ARD.
Recently, the focus has also been increasingly on the truck drivers themselves. The police often come across drivers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Nepal whose driving licenses do not actually allow them to drive in Europe. They are often exchanged in an EU country, and sometimes they are simply forged. Just like with visas or passports. Hundreds of them have already been confiscated in this police station alone.
Strangely cheap offers for hiring drivers
Andreas Schindler knows the reason. His company works in the field of recruiting temporary workers and provides drivers to transport companies as replacements during vacation or illness. He tells ARD that for years he has been receiving more and more offers from apparent "colleagues". They offer drivers for a price of 145 euros per day.
According to the law, anyone who works in Germany on a temporary basis must receive at least the official minimum wage. To this are added all the employer's social security contributions, occupational insurance, paid leave, paid sick days, and then taxes. This amounts to 400 euros per day. For less money, this activity simply cannot be financed legally.
Anyone who offers drivers for half the price can significantly undercut the market and push out competitors who work seriously. But who are these drivers who can be hired so incredibly cheaply?
Import of drivers from all over the world
Many of these companies are based in Lithuania, explains ARD. In the capital Vilnius alone, more than 10 companies have applied to the German employment agency and received a license to mediate in temporary employment. The German public media team visited some of the company addresses and found that none of them are located at the address published by the employment agency. ARD journalists managed to contact several representatives of these companies in Latvia by phone, but they refused to give interviews. In some cases, they even behaved aggressively.
At the same time, the ARD team managed to find numerous job advertisements in Cyrillic, which are mainly aimed at people from the former Soviet republics. There, Lithuanian companies are looking for truck drivers for the EU, and according to the advertisements, "no experience is necessary." However, the special patrol officers also encounter drivers from Nepal or some African countries.
Are these people even qualified?
Dirk Ritzenhoff, a professional driver for 36 years, almost sympathizes with these "colleagues," whom he regularly meets at rest stops along the highways, but also in large logistics centers. Many of them cannot park their trucks in reverse at the ramps, he says. Ritzenhof wonders whether these people really have a valid driving license, ARD reports. When they then, sometimes wearing slippers, start loading their trailers, it becomes obvious that they are neither properly equipped nor adequately paid.
Andreas Schindler, who is regularly offered such drivers, notices in their documents that just a few days after entering the EU, they "as if by magic" receive not only a driving license that is equivalent to EU standards, but also the mandatory licenses for professional drivers. In Germany, these licenses are actually only obtained after a several-month course and passing an exam.
Senior police officer Andre Munker, who increasingly encounters such drivers during checks on the highways, can stop them from driving for at least a day. The truck must be driven by another driver during this time. The fine is relatively low. This hardly seems to deter them in the long run. Meanwhile, Munker knows of freight forwarding companies that regularly get caught with such drivers, pay the fine, and two days later the same drivers are back behind the wheel. And the police can only take action if the documents are really missing or there is evidence that they are forged.
The European Union tightens measures, Germany lags behind
The EU wants to prevent such cases. That is why every driver traveling abroad must now have a so-called A1 certificate. It is issued, for example, by the health insurance fund and contains accurate data on health insurance and employer. A driver who cannot present this document in France at any time must pay a fine of 3,000 euros. The situation is similar in Belgium, Austria and other countries. However, there is no such obligation in Germany, explains the ARD.
Only customs services have access to this document via an EU database. However, they told journalists from the public media that they rarely carry out checks on drivers of heavy goods vehicles on the highways. And when they do, it is mainly because of suspicions of smuggling or drug trafficking.
In Italy, for several years now, this certificate has been submitted digitally by every carrier, and the police can check it immediately with a phone or tablet. Italian authorities report that these checks are very effective. Hiring drivers through these illegal schemes is often linked to tax evasion, and Italy has collected hundreds of millions of euros in fines in the past year alone.
In Germany, almost nothing follows up on violations. Investigations are only initiated if a company becomes increasingly involved. And because violations are not handled centrally, but separately by each federal state, sometimes even multiple consecutive violations go undetected. If this does not change, German roads will become increasingly dangerous.