Working in the flesh – whoever complains is fired, or mistreated

“Are u kidding me?” Menacingly, the burly manager of employment agency Reyhan walks up to one of his staff members and stands in front of him in a fighting stance. The employee, David Ionut, just said he’s quitting the agency. The manager lashes out with the left. He punches Ionut in the side, on the head. The manager punches him dozens of times. “No, bro,” says Ionut, trying to protect his head with his hands. “No…”

The assault – filmed with a mobile phone – took place in October 2020 in Schijndel, Brabant, at a holiday park where migrant workers reside. The video of the assault went viral. The boss of the employment agency said in the AD that it was “a private matter” – the slapping manager is his son. He also said: “I cannot accept what my son has done.” He had, he claimed, fired his son on the spot. But now it is back to work for him.

David Ionut, 29, quit Reyhan after three years because he didn’t agree with how employees were treated. He ran from the holiday park after the assault and fled to England the same day. “I was very scared,” says Ionut, who for the first time tells his story in detail about his time at the employment agency. “Something has to change: the Netherlands must better protect labor migrants.”

It is not the first incident with the Gelderland employment agency Reyhan. NRC read reports to the Labor Inspectorate about the company and spoke to (former) employees, municipal officials, other government sources and employees of the FNV trade union.

Where Reyhan is, there are problems. Complaining employees are fired – or even mistreated. Municipalities are powerless against the company: penalties they impose do not impress Reyhan. Union workers who have been approached by Reyhan staff for help, have hardly dared to address the company since the video. Fear dominates.

Employment agency Reyhan (founded in 2008, approximately 40 employees) is a big boy in the meat industry. It has, according to its website, been supplying staff to the main meat processors in the Netherlands for about thirty-five years. Reyhan recruits deboners, meat cutters and experienced butchers for them. About 1,500 men and women in total.

Most of the staff get the agency from abroad, especially Poland and Romania. The Dutch meat industry, with a turnover of roughly 10 billion euros, employs about 12,000 people every day, four-fifths of whom come from abroad.

David Ionut is also from Romania. He will start in 2017, like many new employees at Reyhan on the assembly line in a slaughterhouse in Utrecht. He worked long days working on pig carcasses. “That work was okay,” says Ionut, who was also a butcher in Romania.

He will be promoted after two years. Ionut becomes coordinator. He arranges documents, places to stay and transport for compatriots. His main task is recruiting people. He is looking for new staff through websites and intermediaries. “There was a lot of work, so a lot of people were needed.”

Romanian coordinators play an important role at Reyhan, say former Reyhan employees. Because many labor migrants do not speak English or Dutch, coordinators act as a point of contact. The company also uses them to tell bad news, for example if someone is fired or if there is no work.

David Ionut lied about the salary new employees would earn at his boss’s insistence. “I promised them 1,500 to 2,000 euros a month,” says Ionut – three to four times the average salary in Romania. “But once in the Netherlands they received 700 to 800 euros per month.”

Romanian migrant workers who worked for Reyhan, and about whom NRC previously wrote, told similar stories. They were lured to the Netherlands with salaries of 1,500 to 2,000 euros and stories about a beautiful house. Once they arrived, they were paid much less and slept in old accommodations from the employment agency. When they protested, the problems really started: payouts lagged. In the worst case, they were fired, after which they had to leave their home immediately.

Such complaints about Reyhan also ended up with the Labor Inspectorate, according to reports that NRC saw. A 2018 note is about 23 Romanians who have been promised “golden mountains and a good salary” but are then put together in a house without central heating. They would not have been paid for the days they work.

Another reporter calls the working conditions “very difficult” and says that his ID has been confiscated and has not been returned. In the summer of 2019, a Pole complained that he and his girlfriend did not receive a salary from Reyhan.

The Labor Inspectorate often encountered irregularities at Reyhan. In 2017, she fined the temporary employment agency because 21 temporary workers had been paid in cash. The company was fined EUR 11,500. During an inspection at meat processing company Vitelco in Den Bosch, a year later, inspectors encountered ‘foreigners’ who had no papers to be allowed to work in the Netherlands. Both companies were fined 8,000 euros.

Regular excesses

In his office at the town hall in Didam, Walter Gerritsen, alderman (Wonen, CDA) of the municipality of Montferland, met Reyhan’s boss and his two sons for the first time three years ago. The employment agency lobbied for more residential accommodation in the region, which the municipality had to facilitate. That was “a friendly conversation,” says Gerritsen.

The tone has now changed. Montferland ended up in a conflict with Reyhan, because, according to the alderman, “excesses” regularly occur at the company.

As in the summer of 2019. Complaints were received at the municipality about a corner house in ‘s-Heerenberg, a town on the border with Germany. The property, leased to Reyhan, would be a walk-in for Poles and Romanians. An inspection revealed that the bright white corner house, with 125 square meters of living space, had been converted into a migrant worker hotel with 22 beds. “There were even mattresses in the basement,” says the alderman.

The municipality had the building evacuated because it was unhygienic and unsafe. But when checked a few weeks later, it was wrong again. Officers and enforcers found nine people in the property, intended for one household. The municipality imposed a penalty of 50,000 euros on Reyhan if he did not solve the problems.

That has now been converted into a fine – which has not been paid, says Gerritsen. Reyhan appealed to the Council of State, and that procedure is still ongoing. To increase the pressure, the municipality has increased the penalty to 200,000 euros per week, with a maximum of 600,000 euros.

“It’s a calculation for those boys,” says Gerritsen. “Apparently 50,000 euros in penalty was too low to get them moving. They earn that back. That is why we have increased the amount so that there is more coercion. Their financial drive is more important than their image.” According to the alderman, Reyhan earns not only from the secondment of staff, but also from housing migrant workers.

Philip Meijran of the Labor Inspectorate called it a “dangerous construction” in NRC last year that an employment agency helps migrant workers to find a home and work. This is how they get in trouble: if they lose their job, they also have to leave their home.

Reyhan also causes problems in North Brabant, according to the reports to the Labor Inspectorate. The employment agency is said to be housing “persons illegally” in the municipality of Meierijstad (Schijndel, Sint-Oedenrode, Veghel), an official emailed the Labor Inspectorate in October 2018. The official suspects “exploitation” of employees and fears that wages will be withheld from them wrongly. He asks to investigate whether Reyhan “complies with the applicable law and regulations”. The municipality declined to respond to questions about these reports. And the Labor Inspectorate does not comment on “ongoing investigations”.