The Labor Inspectorate has launched an investigation into the Ibis Styles Hotel in Arnhem for exploiting approximately 20 asylum seekers and a group of Ukrainian refugees...

The cleaners came to work at the Ibis through agents from the German company AHR Clean. Some were paid only partially, others not at all. Those who did receive wages reported receiving only €3.50 to €4.50 per room cleaned...

The cleaners were employed at Ibis without work permits, which are mandatory in the Netherlands for people from outside the European Union. The asylum seekers did receive contracts, but lawyers told Nieuwsuur that the contracts seem to have been translated directly from German, including words and phrases that don’t exist in Dutch, and are not legally valid in the Netherlands...

The Ibis Styles Hotel in Arnhem is part of the Novum Hospitality Group, with over 130 hotels, primarily in Germany. Novum told Nieuwsuur that it would investigate the matter and referred the program to a German cleaning company it hired - Ö&I Clean Group GmbH. That company also told the program it would investigate, and referred Nieuwsuur to the German cleaning company it hired, AHR Clean UG.

AHR Clean UG told Nieuwsuur that it had applied for work permits for some asylum seekers, but they were not available yet. The company did not explain why it didn’t wait for the permits, or failed to use secondment contracts that were legally valid in the Netherlands.

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