It is just a few weeks since the minimum wage was introduced in Germany, but it is already becoming very clear that its implementation in practice really cannot be taken for granted. Scarcely a day goes by without the media reporting new minimum wage breaches. Online, meanwhile, law firms openly offer counselling on how to sidestep the minimum wage. And every day on the minimum wage hotline set up by the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), hundreds of employees tell of the sometimes highly devious attempts being made to do them out of the minimum wage.

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Written by Thorsten Schulten is a senior researcher at the Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI) within the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Published by Global Labour Column and edited by CSID at Wits University.