The Federal Constitutional Court has rejected the constitutional complaint of a meat cutting company against the ban on work contracts in the meat industry that was introduced during the corona pandemic. The First Senate had already rejected the complaint on January 27th, and the decision has now been published. A company that dissected pig heads had sued and, according to its own statements, felt that its constitutionally protected professional freedom had been violated.
The court contradicted this: The ban on work contracts was compatible with the freedom of occupation of the companies because the “moderate” intervention “high-ranking labor and employment concerns health protection« opposites that »predominate in the overall consideration«.
At the same time, the court emphasized: There is no constitutional right to benefit from workers without dealing with the obligations of an employer. The complaint against the ban on temporary work failed due to admissibility because the plaintiff had not sufficiently explained his specific impact.
Corona outbreaks made poor working conditions visible
The background is outbreaks of the coronavirus in slaughterhouses in 2020, which made the poor working conditions of many foreign employees in the meat industry publicly visible. The then federal government made up of the CDU/CSU and SPD reacted with this Law to secure employee rights in the meat industrywhich came into force on January 1, 2021. Since then, work contracts and… Temporary work prohibited in the core area of slaughtering, cutting and meat processing.
Guido Zeitler, chairman of the food-pleasure-restaurants union (NGG), welcomed the decision. Since the introduction of the regulation, former contract employees have been taken over into direct employment relationships, which strengthens their individual position and gives state authorities better control options.
Specific impact not sufficiently explained
The plaintiffs had argued that the factual basis of the law was not sufficient for a complete ban. Attorney Christian Andorfer referred to this an evaluation report from the federal governmentwhich recommended three years after it came into force that an exception for temporary work should be made permanent until the end of March 2024.
Shortly before the law came into force, the court had already rejected several urgent applications from affected companies. Constitutional complaints were also unsuccessful in later main proceedings because the companies had not adequately explained how they were specifically affected.
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