During the interview, ITM director Marco Boly stated that the inspectorate was aware of the alleged cases of human trafficking which have recently been publicised, adding that ITM had already taken action and that investigations were ongoing. However, due to the presumption of innocence, the affected company is currently still operational.
As recently as Wednesday and in cooperation with the police, ITM carried out a long-planned check of the construction company whose employees had just before gone public with accusations of social dumping and exploitation. Circumstances which had also been denounced by RTL back in 2015. On Thursday, some of the company's construction sites were closed and employees were questioned as part of the ongoing investigation.
According to Boly, it would make sense to discuss harsher penalties, especially in the case of repeat offenders. In general, penalties were much higher abroad.
Overall, however, Boly explained that ITM had enough possible sanctions at their disposal, even if they could possibly make use of forced closures more often. The inspectorate did need more employees and was looking into new recruitments as well as improving its training of new staff members.
Boly estimates that ITM needs more than 300 employees in order to cope with the increasingly complex requirements of labour law as well as the country's economic growth.
