Jürgen Linnemann has spent all his working life in a "Werkstatt für behinderte Menschen" – a sheltered workshop for disabled people. Now, at 57, he is the face of a legal test case that could bring the minimum wage to 300,000 disabled workers across Germany.
Germany's sheltered workshops produce goods for internationally known brands, but the people who make them are paid less than the minimum wage. That is because disabled workers in these workshops are technically not employees. As a result, they are not entitled to the minimum wage and cannot join a trade union.
“A German court case could force sheltered workshops to pay 300,000 disabled workers the minimum wage.”
Linnemann is asking the court to rule that people like him should be treated as employees and paid at least the minimum wage. If he wins, it could reshape a system that has long been criticised for segregating disabled people.
Hubert Hüppe, a former federal commissioner for the interests of disabled people, describes the system as a trap. "You go from a special kindergarten to a special school and then into one of these sheltered workshops," he says. "Once you become part of what is a segregated system it's very hard to get out of it."
Dirk Hähnel, now in his 50s, lived that path. He was sent initially to a regular school, but was transferred against his wishes to a special school. "My parents were told that a special school was the best choice," he says. When he was preparing to leave, he was told his only option was a workshop. "I didn't want to do that," he says. He tried to find an apprenticeship instead. He remembers one devastating job interview: "I told my potential employer that I had epilepsy and he said, 'we don't employ idiots here'."
The reporter who uncovered this story was born blind. At six, his first school report advised his parents to send him to a school for children with learning disabilities. He grew up speaking both German and Arabic, mixing them up. If his parents had not ignored that report, he writes, he too might have ended up in a workshop. Instead, he is one of only a handful of journalists in Germany with a visible disability.
The court's decision in Linnemann's case will be watched closely by campaigners who say the workshop system fails in its most basic responsibility. For now, hundreds of thousands of disabled workers wait to see if they will finally be recognised as employees, with all the rights that brings.