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The surprise was great when employees at a Mercedes branch opened their pay slips for March on Tuesday.
In WhatsApp groups, the Daimler employees vented their anger: "Asocial" is the behavior of the employer, complains someone who has been particularly hard hit.
Because instead of the usual monthly wage or at least the short-time allowance, the statement said that the group would transfer the amount of 0.00 euros for the month of March.
Numerous other employees should also receive no money or only minimal amounts.
The frustration becomes clear in many of the voice messages from Mercedes sellers that are available to WELT AM SONNTAG.
It was clear to everyone that there would be less money because the employees had been on short-time work for months.
But nobody had expected that you wouldn't get anything in the end.
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Even a voice message from the branch manager, who had inquired at the head office, could not calm the minds.
In January the commissions were paid out in full, and Daimler is now "correcting" this in the March statement.
What comes next sounds like at least a strange rule: "Half of the commissions are withheld so that you are able to receive short-time allowance at all," says the manager.
"We are pushing you below the short-time working threshold."
That helps high-earning sellers.
"Only when our company gives up short-time work is the rest of the money paid, then the big chunk comes back, which of course doesn't help us now."
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Is that permissible?
Does Daimler expect some of its employees to be poor in order to provide them with short-time work benefits?
With the short-time work allowance, the state has created an instrument to help ailing companies in a temporary crisis so that they do not have to lay off employees.
No comment from the authorities
In return, the state not only pays the social security contributions, but also part of the salary.
Although the car dealerships in Germany are also suffering from the lockdown, one can hardly speak of a company in need at Daimler.
In 2020, the carmaker increased its profit by 48 percent to more than four billion euros, despite the pandemic.
Just last week, Daimler paid a dividend of 1.35 euros per share - 50 percent more than in the previous year.
This was also made possible by savings of around 700 million euros through short-time working benefits.
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At the Federal Employment Agency, which is responsible for short-time work benefits, it is said that one cannot comment on the practice of individual companies.
Basically, to calculate the amount of short-time work allowance for employees with commission-dependent pay, consider the average earnings in the three months before short-time work.
"Everything is correct"
Daimler does not deny that some employees in the payroll for March suffered “significant wages and salaries”.
"We are aware of the inconvenience for the employees concerned and will find individual solutions to avoid cases of hardship," said a spokeswoman.
However, everything is correct.
"The determination of the remuneration of salespeople is complex, because salespeople have a time difference between work performance and commission due date due to commissions," said the spokeswoman.
“In order to enable this professional group to participate in short-time work in a comparable way, a specific procedure was agreed with the Federal Employment Agency.” According to the industry, other car dealers also seduce in a similar way.
In the past few months there have been "various regulations on short-time work and tax legislation," said Daimler.
This resulted in overpayments in January.
"The offsetting of received overpayments took place according to plan in the following months," said the spokeswoman.
The employees were informed in advance.
However, several sellers deny this.
The group emphasizes that they “consistently adhere to the legal framework”.
"It is wrong that in the Mercedes-Benz branches commission for salespeople are inadmissibly withheld in order to assert claims for short-time work benefits," said the spokeswoman.