By Amy Zayed, BBC Business Reporter, Paderborn, Germany
A test case before a German court could have implications for hundreds of thousands of disabled people who currently work for less than the legal minimum wage. The legal action has been brought on behalf of 57-year-old Jürgen Linnemann, who has spent all his working life in a “Werkstatt für behinderte Menschen” — a sheltered workshop for disabled people. In Germany, some 300,000 disabled people work in these workshops, which produce a range of goods for internationally known companies. The people who make them are paid less than the minimum wage, less than a worker in the mainstream economy would be paid for doing the same work — because disabled people in sheltered workshops are technically not employees, meaning they do not enjoy the right to minimum wage or to join a trade union.
Linnemann is asking the court to rule that people like him should be treated as employees and paid the minimum wage. A 2023 report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities criticised Germany’s record, specifically noting “the high number of persons with disabilities enrolled in sheltered workshops and the low rate of transition to the open labour market.” Fewer than 1% of disabled people make a successful transition from workshop to a job with a mainstream company. Among the barriers: companies in Germany that employ more than 20 people are legally obliged to employ at least one disabled person but many simply pay a compensation sum rather than meet their quota — and outsourcing production to a workshop reduces the compensation owed. The next hearing at Münster Labour Court is due in September; a decision is not expected for a year.