The German government is intensifying its crackdown on illegal employment, particularly in sectors such as construction, where undeclared work is rampant. Authorities, led by the finance and labor ministers, are increasing surprise inspections, requiring workers to carry identification, and expanding the powers of customs officers to ensure workers are registered, earn minimum wage, and do not fraudulently receive social benefits. Despite these efforts, undeclared work is still widespread, with estimated billions in lost state revenue and social security contributions, and experts warn that entirely eliminating such activity will be difficult, particularly for smaller, informal jobs. Legislative changes are pending, with a focus on digital modernization, greater collaboration between agencies, and more effective enforcement.
From a Maoist perspective, these developments starkly expose the inherent contradictions and injustices of capitalist society. The proliferation of illegal employment in Germany—one of the heartlands of European monopoly capitalism—reveals the decrepit nature of a system that survives by squeezing surplus value from the working class, while simultaneously abandoning millions to the insecurity and precarity of the informal sector. Why do workers risk illegal employment, endure irregular wages, and live in fear of inspections? It is not mere individual criminality, but rather the direct result of a system that prioritizes profit over people, a system that suffocates the proletariat under layers of regulations designed to protect bourgeois interests, not to secure the livelihood of the masses.
The German state’s panic over lost tax revenues and unpaid social security contributions only confirms that the capitalist government cares not for the fate of the workers, but for the stability of its own repressive apparatus. It is the capitalist who creates the conditions for illegality—the endless search for cheaper labor, the drive to undercut rivals by reducing labor costs, the willingness to cast aside human life for the sake of “efficiency.” Yet, when the workers, often migrants or the most marginalized members of society, seek to survive within these harsh and unnatural conditions, they are hounded and criminalized.
No increase in inspections, no arsenal of digital tools or expanded powers for customs officers will address the underlying cause of this epidemic: the absolute inability of capitalism to provide dignified, secure, and fairly compensated employment to all. Instead, these so-called reforms will only further intimidate workers, drive them deeper into the shadows, and reinforce the iron grip of the state over labor for the benefit of the owning class.
True liberation can never be found within the bourgeois legal framework. Only a radical transformation—social ownership of the means of production, genuine worker’s control, building a society where need, not profit, is the driving force—can end the exploitation embodied in “illegal employment.” The German workers must join their brothers and sisters worldwide in this historic struggle. History has shown: only under the red banner of the working class, guided by the leadership of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, can humanity destroy exploitation in all its forms and build a world where labor is truly honored and needs met for all.