Enlarge image
Undeclared work: FKS customs officers during an operation on a construction site
Photo: Arne Dedert / DPA
The trade union IG Bau criticizes illegal practices and undeclared work on a large scale on German construction sites.
In the first six months of this year alone, the Financial Control Office (FKS) initiated 9,251 preliminary investigations in the main and ancillary construction trades, reports IG Bau.
That is around a fifth more than in the same period last year, when there were 7430. IG Bau relies on figures that the Federal Ministry of Finance reported to a request from Bundestag member Bernhard Daldrup (SPD) for all 41 main customs offices in Germany.
The "Neue Westfälische" had previously reported on the numbers.
In the first half of the year, a good 11 percent of the 82,000 investigations across all sectors related to illegal employment, social fraud and minimum wage violations on construction sites, according to IG Bau.
The determined amount of damage is around 161 million euros.
“The violations that have been uncovered are just the tip of the iceberg,” said IG Bau board member Carsten Burckhardt in Frankfurt am Main.
"More and more often we are dealing with structures of organized crime." Undeclared work and illegal employment are part of everyday life in construction, according to Burckhardt: Entire constructs of bogus subcontractors are set up to cover up illegal employment.
Increasing cost pressure
Burckhardt warned of an increase in illegal machinations: "High inflation, rising building interest rates, high material and energy costs - everything leads to growing cost pressure in construction." Precisely because there is no minimum wage in the industry and too few undeclared work controls, employers have fallen short Pressure to adhere to the construction collective agreement.
Burckhardt called for a stronger customs presence on construction sites.
In addition, companies that have become conspicuous should be excluded from public contracts.
mamk/dpa-AFX
