Systemic harm, regulatory repair? Migrant labour in the German meat industry

The meat industry is characterized by precarious employment, hazardous working conditions, and a strong reliance on migrant labour. These dynamics generate systemic health risks for migrant workers that became especially visible during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the German government enacted the Occupational Safety Control Act (OSCA), which banned subcontracted and temporary agency work in the sector from 2021. Five years on, our study examines how different stakeholders assess the impact of the OSCA through the lens of a migrant labour regime. Empirically, the study draws on 21 qualitative interviews, complemented by site visits and ethnographic engagement within a transdisciplinary research network. Conceptually, it links a political-economy perspective on migrant labour regimes - which foregrounds structural relations shaping migrant employment - to an analytical focus on how these structures materialize in, and are reproduced through, workers’ bodily and psychosocial experiences of harm. Our findings suggest that the transition to direct employment has improved contractual employment conditions and aspects of occupational safety. However, long-term health harms, informal control practices, and limited worker voice persist. These outcomes point to the continued operation of a precarious migrant labour regime, in which a high risk of injury and ill health is not merely an unintended consequence. Rather, it emerges from our analysis as part of a socially, economically, and politically entrenched system that disciplines migrant workers – in the workplace and the reproductive sphere - and renders their labour exploitable. By linking structural regulation to embodied experience, our study highlights both the limits of legal reform, and the importance of addressing injury and inequity as constitutive features of precarious migrant labour regimes.

Key messages

• Germany’s ban on intermediated work in the meat sector improved employment conditions and workplace safety, but migrant workers still face health harms, informal control, and limited voice.

• The OSCA was an important first step, but ought to be expanded and complemented by measures that address power imbalances and strengthen migrant workers’ rights and voice.