A banner was unfurled on a Kassel motorway feeder road in solidarity with the truckers' strike in southern Hesse. Around people have been on strike since mid-July 150 Truck driver for a Polish shipping company, the Mazur Group, at the Gräfenhausen motorway service area (Darmstadt-Dieburg district). An article about the precarity in the supply chains of capital and solidarity on the edge of the A5.
The many trucks on German motorways are omnipresent. The drivers mostly come from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, who transport goods across Europe for German companies and their often scandalous working conditions are often overlooked by the German public. Fleeting encounters at motorway service stations do little to change this.
But for several weeks now, the industrial action of dozens of truckers has been shaking up this invisibility: Since July, a number of trucks from the Polish Mazur group have been idle at the Gräfenhausen motorway service station and serve as pickets and homes for the drivers. Mazur's truck drivers' strike draws public attention to truckers and their problems. The drivers have not received wages from their employer for up to five months. The shipping company owes them a good half a million euros.
Gräfenhausen serves as a strike site for the second time
This is not the first industrial dispute by Mazur drivers: Were already in March 60 Truck drivers from the same shipping company went on strike at the Gräfenhausen service area and successfully won their wages after six weeks. At that time, Mazur owed them salaries of around 300.000 Euro. The forwarding company operates through an extensive network of subcontractors, including for Ikea, Siemens, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche and Red Bull as well as the logistics companies DHL and Intercargo. These corporate customers continue to work with Mazur. And that, although the trucking company had sent a masked group of thugs in armored vehicles to the rest stop in April, to break the strike by force.
First successes: A company pays
The successful strike in the spring obviously did not persuade the company to do so, from now on pay wages on time, but truckers' organization appears to have strengthened. There are now around 1,000 waiting in Gräfenhausen 150 men out. After more than a month of strike, a smaller company in Mazur's supply chain paid wages directly to the drivers at the end of August, gut 20.000 Euro. The Mazur Group has not yet ordered any payments and has instead filed a complaint, among other things, for blackmail.
Solidarity from the region
The strikers receive support from the Fair Mobility advisory network of the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB). People from the region have also been coming for weeks and, in collaboration with the union and churches, bringing food to the strikers, wash riders' clothes and organize rides to a nearby gym, where there are showers.
The Swedish trade union Solidariska Byggare has set up an international strike fund, to support migrant workers in Europe, from which money has already gone to the drivers in Gräfenhausen. Also the university union unter_bau and the Free Workers' Union (FAU) from Frankfurt collected donations.
Supply chains: A business model, that is based on exploitation
The strike in Gräfenhausen sheds light on an industry, in which exploitation is the order of the day. The workers at Mazur are bogusly self-employed and the contracts, which you have to sign, are often written in languages they do not understand or as blank contracts. Almost all of the drivers come from Georgia, some also from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Your residence permit depends on your employment relationship, which means a double dependence on the employer. Truck drivers have to do this, who operate in Germany, are actually paid according to the German minimum wage, regardless of where their employer is based. This is circumvented in reality, many drivers only earn between 75 and 89 euros per day, Expenses included.
„Solidarity with the striking truck drivers – Solidarity with striking truck drivers in Gräfenhausen!“
Banner at the Kassel-Auestadion motorway entrance
The truckers at the service area in southern Hesse have been on strike for a good six weeks despite attempts at intimidation by the shipping company. In order to express support for the strikers from Kassel and to give their concerns further visibility, A bilingual banner was hung on a bridge over a motorway access road.