We call for a week of actions from April 1-5 – take part!
Work: yes – Rights: no? Everybody has the right to a decent minimum of existence – against the organized withdrawal of social rights by German authorities!
Without the work of migrants, meat and vegetables would not be so cheap in Germany. Factories, offices and private houses wouldn‘t be cleaned. Many elderly and sick people wouldn‘t be cared for.
Migrant work is desired – but only if it is silent and invisible. But when migrant demand fair wages and working conditions, good housing, health care, social and child benefits, there is talk of benefit fraud and even organized gang crime.
Already today, people without a German passport are often excluded from social security in times of distress. The German government plans to expand these zones of exclusion even more.
Exclusion from Child Benefits?
There is a draft of a new law that shall withdraw the right to child benefits for non-german EU-citizens in Germany.
This affects especially those who need these benefits the most, e.g. single mothers, and fosters child poverty.
Exclusion from public spaces?
Poor and homeless persons are often expelled from public spaces. The new law shall allow security officers to send off and fine people preventively, if they only appear to offer their (wo)manpower in public spaces for undocumented work. Instead of strengthening labour rights, this law obstructs and criminalizes self organized job seeking strategies.
Instead: Suspicion, suppositions, persecution
A new internal instruction of the Federal Agency for Labour puts EU-citizens without a German passport under the general suspicion of benefit fraud. Employees of the Jobcenter shall control and discipline poor persons from Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania and Spain especially austerely. These new regulations do not support struggles against over-exploitation and do not protect rights, but they deepen racist exclusions, divide between „useful manpower“ and „suspects“ and exclude even more people from basic social rights and a secure life.
These inhumane politics are not new: For example, refugees are regularly suspected to simulate parenthoods or marriages. A complex system of laws of exclusion divides between ‚asylum seekers‘, ‚EU-citizens‘, ‚nationals‘ and other status groups.
- We demand that the instructions of the Federal Agency for Labour and the new law are taken back!
- Everybody should have the right to social security regardless of residence and employment status!
- Social security agencies shall support applicants to claim their rights and secure their livelihood!
Network „Europe in Movement“ (ALSO, BASTA, Initiative Zivilcourage / Gruppe Workers‘ Center München, Oficina precaria Berlín)