Labor Inspectorate investigating Arnhem hotel for exploiting asylum seekers, Ukrainians

The Labor Inspectorate has launched an investigation into the Ibis Styles Hotel in Arnhem for exploiting approximately 20 asylum seekers and a group of Ukrainian refugees. These workers were recruited on the street, put to work at the hotel through various intermediaries, and worked under dodgy conditions without the proper documentation, Nieuwsuur reported.

The cleaners came to work at the Ibis through agents from the German company AHR Clean. Some were paid only partially, others not at all. Those who did receive wages reported receiving only €3.50 to €4.50 per room cleaned. A Ukrainian couple had to split their wages, receiving only €1.75 per room, but added that they were allowed to eat the leftovers from the hotel’s breakfast buffet. Those who were paid received their wages in cash in the hotel lobby, something that is prohibited in the Netherlands.

The cleaners were employed at Ibis without work permits, which are mandatory in the Netherlands for people from outside the European Union. The asylum seekers did receive contracts, but lawyers told Nieuwsuur that the contracts seem to have been translated directly from German, including words and phrases that don’t exist in Dutch, and are not legally valid in the Netherlands. The German company is also not registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, as it should be.

“We consider this a very serious case,” Anna Ensing of Fairwork, a non-profit that supports victims of labor exploitation, told the program. “People were actively recruited to work somewhere with all sorts of promises about salaries and obtaining the correct paperwork. These promises were not kept, and it shows once again that there are companies that exploit a vulnerable group for their own profit.”

The Ibis Styles Hotel in Arnhem is part of the Novum Hospitality Group, with over 130 hotels, primarily in Germany. Novum told Nieuwsuur that it would investigate the matter and referred the program to a German cleaning company it hired - Ö&I Clean Group GmbH. That company also told the program it would investigate, and referred Nieuwsuur to the German cleaning company it hired, AHR Clean UG.

AHR Clean UG told Nieuwsuur that it had applied for work permits for some asylum seekers, but they were not available yet. The company did not explain why it didn’t wait for the permits, or failed to use secondment contracts that were legally valid in the Netherlands.

According to Ensing of Fairwork, exploitative companies deliberately set up different routes and structures. “To make everything so complex, so that fraudulent practices are easier. Because everyone points to each other.”