One of my best friends comes from Eastern Europe and works in construction.
It's the same everywhere.
He knows how it works.
There are some legal jobs, but if you come from Eastern Europe,
you have to work illegally.
And our bosses think:
‘We can do that too’, it's nice and cheap.
But maybe not.
There is no reason,
why the delivery needs to be on this side versus on this side.
You know what I mean?
Right now, in this group we all want to push to try,
- this is our last chance at Lieferando - to get on this side.
I am Merle, a member of the Lieferando Workers Collective
and also member of the works council
of the Lieferando couriers in Berlin and Potsdam.
Today we have our works meeting in Potsdam
for the approximately 60 colleagues who are now very likely to be made redundant
before the end of this year.
Lieferando says that they need to become more agile.
And of course, that just means that they have found a way
to make it even cheaper than it already is.
They dismiss their directly employed curiers
and re-hire them via subcontractors
and make them work illegally.
That means via these subcontractors.
Then there is another sub-level and they provide
people without contracts.
These are people who work completely without contracts,
They do exactly the same job,
that we have done so far.
Delivering food for Lieferando,
and are not paid paid per hour,
have no minimum wage,
have no sick pay payment in case of illness,
have no holiday.
This really means that all labour rights are lost
for the colleagues, who probably
be partly forced to switch to Fleetlery,
to this subcontractor.
Fleetlery is a company based in Hamburg,
who on their website say,
that they employ for Lieferando, Wolt and UberEats.
In Berlin we see above all,
that it is about another sub-level.
The subcontractor then passes on to another subcontractor
and they then make these really shady deals,
where the colleagues work without labour rights and without a contract.
They get access to the app,
usually also after they have paid a price.
So sometimes you have to pay 50 €, to get an account in the first place
and then another 50 is taken away from the first salary.
But we have also heard from people
that sums of 500 € are deducted.
And the wage payments, work like this,
that people are very spontaneously
contacted by these fleet managers:
"Today, 7pm in Treptower Park,
at such and such a place, please come quickly,
I don't want a mix of people."
And then you get cash in your hand.
And if you don't
log in as much as the fleet manager wants,
meaning you are actually available at any time
to drive orders,
you will simply be kicked you out of the app.
And then you are fired somehow,
but at the same time you are not because there was no contract.
But from one moment to the next you are without a job.
I am Horst
and I am here
to support the people from Potsdam,
so that they can take matters into their own hands
and say what they want,
because we will all be affected by this termination.
Not only Potsdam, Hamburg,
at some point it will also be Berlin and others.
And we will then all
have to work for some other companies,
who do not accept our workers' rights
and make us bogus self-employed or employ us in some other way.
And that will not benefit any of us.
We still get paid when we are ill,
we still have at least minimum hours,
which are contractually guaranteed.
For other companies, among others Fleetlery,
this will no longer be the same.
We stand around, we don't get money.
We can no longer know any more,
what we will have at the end of the month.
And that is...
I'm a family man, I have a wife and child.
It's a horror not to know how much money you'll have
at the end of the month.
With Lieferando we currently can plan, we know:
That comes at the end of the month, we can count on that.
At other companies where you are no longer employed permanently
you don't know whether you can pay your rent,
nor whether you'll get food on the table.
In my opinion Lieferando should entirely go on strike.
So that means everywhere in Germany Lieferando
would have to go on strike, not just Hamburg, Potsdam,
to show Lieferando:
"We have a cohesion,
we are all colleagues and we fight for our job!"
I'm here today,
because we are having this workers assembly,
because we are all being fired right now, as Potsdam curiers.
We are already working for the legal minimum.
And if we lose this job, if we are forced to work for Fleetlery,
we will be forced to work without contracts,
without proper social security contributions paid,
and without taxes properly paid.
I don't want to be doing illicit work for example.
Migrants are continuously blamed for that.
I don't want to do that, why would I want to do that?
I would, of course, prefer my health insurance properly paid.
I would, of course, like to be able to have my sick leave
when I am actually sick.
And this is what I would implore German public
to understand, that ...
For Wolt and UberEats, it's already the case for some of these companies,
that these orders
are actually being delivered by people who cannot even take a sick leave.
Their orders are being delivered by people whose social contributions
are not being paid properly by these companies.
This is already being done.
And Lieferando already has started doing this.
Some of Lieferando's people
are working now in Berlin without proper contracts
and they are
working under these conditions where they don't have any job security
and they cannot take simply a sick note.
And I don't know that if they would prefer their...
... if they would prefer
their food being delivered by sick people,
I wouldn't want to work when I am sick
but I will be forced to do that.
The point is that this model is actually
such a backward, criminal model.
I can just say this much, that I'm from Turkey,
and the model that Lieferando is switching to,
the model that UberEats and Wolt are already working with
in several cities in almost all of Germany,
is actually something
that I would see in 1950s Turkey, Istanbul in 1950s.
I wouldn't see this happening even in Turkey in 2025.
And this is happening in Berlin, in Germany, a country that is proud of
adhering to laws
and legal minimums.
The entire image we had about Germany
is that this country sticks to laws that if something is illegal, ...
If I'm talking with a German,
if I explain some illegal practices that is going on with Fleetlery,
with Lieferando, UberEats or Wolt,
they would just simply brush it off:
"This is illegal though!", like, yes, it is illegal, but they are doing it!
And when I say that they are doing it: "But it is illegal.
They can't do this." - But they are!
When I say they are, they wouldn't even believe it that it is happening.
But yeah, those news are out there now.
There are examples of investigative journalism
and this is actually happening,
they are actually committing these crimes
and will commit them as long as they are getting away with it.
I am Martin Bechert,
I am a specialist lawyer for labour law and works council lawyer.
What this is actually about is whether you still have a legal employment relationship
or whether you are actually driven into illegality,
because you can only work for criminal subcontractors.
If you want to do a demonstration
or go on strike, or if you want to be louder:
I will spend every day between now and then
working to make sure it happens.
We just need a few ideas and some support.