Jürgen Linnemann has spent his entire working life in a sheltered workshop for disabled people in Germany. Now, at 57, he is asking a German court to rule that he and 300,000 others like him should be treated as employees and paid the legal minimum wage.
The case, brought on Linnemann's behalf, challenges a system in which disabled people in so-called "Werkstatt für behinderte Menschen" – sheltered workshops – are technically not employees. That means the right to the minimum wage does not apply to them, nor do other rights such as the ability to join a trade union. The workshops produce goods for companies and brands often known internationally, yet the workers are paid less than the minimum wage, less than a worker in the mainstream economy would earn for the same work.
“A German court test case could force equal pay for 300,000 disabled workers in sheltered workshops.”
Hubert Hüppe, a former federal commissioner for the interests of disabled people and a prominent critic of the workshop system, says that once you become part of what is a segregated system, it is very hard to get out of it. "You go from a special kindergarten to a special school and then into one of these sheltered workshops," he said.
Dirk Hähnel, now in his 50s, knows this path well. He spent most of his adult life in sheltered workshops near the central-western city of Paderborn. Sent initially to a regular school, he was transferred against his wishes to a special school after his parents were told it was the best choice. Later, when preparing to leave that institution, he was told his only option was a workshop. "I didn't want to do that," he said. He tried to find an apprenticeship instead, but one potential employer told him: "We don't employ idiots here," after Hähnel disclosed his epilepsy.
The reporter, who was born blind, notes that many similar stories exist. She recalls her own first school report at age six, which advised her parents to send her to a school for children with learning disabilities because she mixed up German and Arabic. If her parents had not ignored that report, she might have ended up in a workshop. Instead, she is one of only a handful of journalists in Germany with a visible disability.
Hüppe says the workshop system fails in one of its most basic responsibilities. The outcome of Linnemann's test case could have implications for hundreds of thousands of disabled people across Germany.