Oxfam’s latest study casts a glaring spotlight on some dark corners of Germany’s supply chains. In contrast to earlier studies, Oxfam has conducted its research not on the other side of the world, in tropical and subtropical farming regions, but right before its own front door: on Germany’s domestic asparagus and strawberry farms. The seasonal workers here who harvest farm produce destined for Germany’s supermarkets experience exploitation and poor working conditions. Wage dumping, exorbitant rents, and inadequate health insurance are ubiquitous...

The results of our research are appalling: While the minimum wage in principle applies to seasonal workers on the asparagus and strawberry farms, interviews revealed the use of various methods for systematically cutting wages—even to levels below the minimum wage. Many workers are confronted with a dizzying combination of hourly rates and piece-work pay schemes and report that they are given harvesting quotas that are difficult or impossible to meet. A further problem involves excessive deductions from their pay. Workers pay up to 420 Euro per month for the most basic communal lodgings—and thus more than the average rent in Germany’s big cities. The rent paid for lodging at one of the enterprises studied amounted to 40 Euro per square meter— while the average rent before charges and utilities in Munich’s city center lies at around 23 Euro per square meter. The lodgings moreover resemble barracks: there is no kitchen, so tenants have to cook on portable hotplates. 50 people share a single toilet facility. “We’re not in Europe here,” sums up Adrian*, one such worker. The enterprise he works for delivers produce to Aldi Nord and Edeka, among others. The giant supermarket chain Edeka boasted on its website about “lodgings like in a hotel.” After Oxfam pointed out the discrepancy, Edeka erased the reference.

Besides poor pay, another big problem is inadequate health insurance for the workers. Most of them have no comprehensive health insurance or state that they are not insured at all. The majority are hired under the rubric of “short-term employment.” Enterprises generally cover such shortterm employees under a private, group-insurance policy, which provides a much narrower scope of coverage than the public insurance plans. Many workers report that they have to pay for treatment out of their own pockets. As a result of extremely short notice requirements for termination—in some cases as short as one day—it happens that workers must undertake the long voyage home while still ill or injured.

Responsibility for these untenable working conditions does not lie exclusively with the farming enterprises, which hire seasonal workers. Above all, it lies with the German supermarkets, which pay ruinous prices for strawberries and asparagus. Aldi, Rewe, Edeka, and the Schwarz-Group— which owns Kaufland and Lidl— together account for more than 85 percent of all German retail food sales. Farmers report that the supermarkets use their enormous market power to exert pitiless price pressure on strawberry and asparagus producers. In most cases, producers don’t even have the opportunity to negotiate: If they can’t deliver at the price the supermarkets want to pay, they can keep their strawberries. Further, there are reports about unfair trading practices. Many of our interview partners stated, for instance, that in certain cases the supermarkets sent fresh produce back without paying for it...

All the enterprises named in this study received a copy of the passages that concern them and were given the opportunity to send us their comments prior to publication. We present their replies in Part 7 of this study...