Berlin (AFP)

Germany has strengthened the supervision of work in its slaughterhouses, by prohibiting subcontracts which allow the massive use of posted workers from Eastern Europe, after a series of cases of coronavirus in these establishments.

"From January 1, 2021, the slaughter and processing of meat can only be carried out by employees of the company" final, announced Wednesday the German Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil.

"We must put an end to irresponsibility," said Hubertus Heil, speaking of the need to "clean up" in the sector.

This ban will put an end to a very widespread practice in the meat industry, consisting of massively using labor from Eastern Europe, hired by companies from these countries, then "posted" in Germany via "service contracts".

This model is accused of "disempowering" German companies, according to the German food union NGG, because the working conditions of these employees remain under the responsibility of the subcontracting companies.

- 200,000 people -

According to the government, of the 200,000 people working in the meat industry in Germany, between "50% and 80%" are hired under this type of contract today.

Denounced for several years, the use of "detached" subcontracting has sparked new controversy in recent weeks after the discovery of several sources of infection in various abattoirs in the country.

More than 90 employees at a slaughterhouse in north-western Germany, in Dissen, have tested positive for the new coronavirus, as the pandemic dies across the country.

A "large number" of them were employed under a subcontract, often living in collective housing with controversial hygienic conditions.

Another abattoir in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein recently reported more than 100 cases, and 60 workers at a facility in Bavaria were infected.

The plan presented Wednesday also provides for a strengthening of controls, especially in the collective habitats where these employees are housed.

This plan targets "industrial meat factories" and not "small slaughterhouses," said Hubertus Heil.

Still, this decision provoked the ire of representatives of the sector, which rested for years on the low labor costs of these employees to gain market share at European level.

- Fears of the sector -

"A large part of the meat processing activities will have to be moved abroad," said the head of VDF, the sector organization in Germany, in an interview with the regional press group Funke.

On the contrary, the unions welcomed the news. That of the food NGG estimated that this finally put an end to conditions of "inhuman work in this industry".

Beyond Germany, cases are multiplying in slaughterhouses in several countries.

In France, more than a hundred people also tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday in two "clusters" within two slaughterhouses.

In the first, an establishment in Côtes-d'Armor (Brittany), where six cases had been reported on Friday, the tests revealed 63 other positive cases, according to the Regional Health Agency.

In the Loiret, 400 employees of a slaughterhouse in Fleury-lès-Aubrais - where an outbreak of 34 cases of Covid-19 has been confirmed, without serious form - were screened this week.

In the United States, several abattoirs have become centers of contagion for Covid-19.

© 2020 AFP