Regional Court (LG) - Augsburg, Judgment as of 2/18/2008
File number 9KLs 507 Js 121451/07

Summary

The court convicted the two accused in February 2008 for human trafficking for the purposes of labour exploitation and for employing foreign nationals without permits, and sentenced them to imprisonment for terms of three years and three months respectively two years.

For the forthcoming strawberry harvest in May 2007, the accused recruited a total of 100 male and female workers from Romania and attempted to organize them, without working permits, into a partnership of independent entrepreneurs. His intentions here were to avoid the proper hiring (employment) of them and thereby avoid being bound by collective bargaining agreements and by workers’ safety/protection regulations. The work was supposed to be carried out for EUR 1.80 per 5-kilo basket of strawberries. The workers turned this down. But because an agreement had to be reached quickly on account of the approaching harvest, the accused agreed to pay the harvest workers an hourly wage of EUR 5.50 although he knew that he could not afford to pay this. Most of the workers concerned quit the job. Others worked 110 hours in eleven days, for example. Although the union wage for this would have been a total of EUR 561, only EUR 100 was paid as an advance for food or wages. In another case, 160 hours had been worked for example in 16 days. The union wage for this would have been a total of EUR 816, however only EUR 150 was paid.
The injured parties were housed in very basic containers without running water or fire protection equipment, with electricity with no overload protection, and with inadequate cooking and sanitation facilities. At first there were not enough sleeping places for everyone. The court regarded this as being "strikingly incongruous" with customary working conditions.
And because no one spoke German or had any knowledge of employees’ rights, the court found that a “foreign-country-connected-vulnerability” within the meaning of section 233 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) existed here. The injured parties had no money at first to buy themselves food. Financial resources for their own housing, mobility, or to return to Romania were also withheld from them. They were therefore in fact dependent on the accused.

Decision in full text: