PRESS RELEASE – BERLIN, July 06, 2023 – When they first started this year, they were not sure of their success: after seven months of court hearings, demonstrations, press work and self-organization, the mass-dismissed workers of eco CARRIER AG and velo CARRIER GmbH agreed to an out of court settlement for the payment of all outstanding wages and additional severance payments.
On Wednesday, the 21.06. the time had come. In the office of the Free Workers Union (FAU) Berlin, the negotiators of the FAU and CEO Raimund Rassillier agreed on a severance payment of about one month’s wages per worker and the payment of outstanding wages.
Until December, the riders had delivered vegetable boxes for REWE and other companies. Despite promises, the working conditions became increasingly worse and more dangerous. The bikes were not maintained, the wages were not paid regularly or were paid incorrectly, and the shift planning was changed spontaneously. As a reason, ecoCARRIER AG/ veloCARRIER GmbH usually named random errors and exceptions that were to be corrected promptly. The Berlin site management quit due to the intolerable working conditions and their own overload. Shortly after workers began a work council election, Rassillier responded by announcing the closure of the Berlin site. The company consistently ignored individual workers’ attempts to communicate with the company, as well as jointly submitted letters. The first ten conciliation hearings before the labor court were postponed at short notice by ecoCARRIER AG/velo CARRIER GmbH. Despite these delaying tactics, the workers stuck to their cause, founded the ecoCARRIER workers’ group within the FAU and organized, among other things, a bicycle demonstration to one of the workplaces as well as a demonstration in front of REWE in Neukölln.
“At every court hearing we appeared as a group. In this way, we were first able to arrange for out-of-court negotiations and then kept up the pressure to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion.”
— Helen W, rider and a part of the FAU-Betriebsgruppe.
The out of court settlement is not their only success: the mass dismissed workers stood together for over seven months and supported each other in solidarity. They gained knowledge about labor law and the process of filing a lawsuit against termination. This process politicized and empowered them. Members of the FAU repeatedly acted as advocates in conciliation hearings and were recognized as such by the court. The various press reports on this struggle against layoffs and poor treatment raised awareness of malpractices in the industry.
“This victory is proof that unjust termination and poor working conditions are something that you don’t have to accept and endure. When we as workers unite and fight back, we are hard to defeat. That knowledge we’ll bring to our future workplaces.”
— Anna B, rider and a part of the FAU-Betriebsgruppe.