Poland angered by German new law on minimal wage for transit truck drivers

Crow 154 | 9244

24 Jan 2015 / #1

an article, from one of my favorite sources of the Slavic world

Poland angered by German new law on minimal wage for transit truck drivers

January 23, 2015 / Warsaw Voice
warsawvoice.pl/WVpage/pages/article.php/30727/news

Under new German legislation foreign truck drivers must be paid the German minimum wage for any hours they spend driving across Germany.

A national German minimum of EUR 8.50 an hour came into force this month. That is higher than many earn in a Polish trucking industry which has taken advantage of low costs to take a big share of the trans-European road freight business.

Polish firms may become uncompetitive against Western European firms as they face additional internally-imposed costs related to, for instance, lump sum payments for hotels for drivers, head of logistics lobby TiLP Maciej Wronski said.

bullfrog 6 | 602

24 Jan 2015 / #2

Why should they become uncompetitive if they have to apply the same rules (ie pay the same wages) as Western firms? It is rather a rebalancing act, making sure everyone (at least on German territory ...) plays by the same rules. What has happened over the years is that western European haulage firms have been massively replacing their west European drivers with much cheaper East European drivers, which has created a lot of difficulties for the former..

weeg

24 Jan 2015 / #3

additional internally-imposed costs related to, for instance, lump sum payments for hotels

I have read this several times and i still have no idea what it means...

How does Germany intend to enforce this 'law' because it seems completly impractical or illegal in the EU.

pigsy 7 | 304

24 Jan 2015 / #4

My question would be if a polish trucking company driver drives across germany in 3.1/2 hrs and does that company have to pay 8.50 euro an hrs but where do they have to pay the taxes for that21.25 euro? unemplyment/retirement etc taxes??