Even before the new Eastern EU states were granted full freedom of movement for workers on 1 May 2010, it was estimated that 100,000 care workers from Eastern Europe were being employed illegally in Germany. The working conditions in this sector are currently unclear under labour and social law. Despite this, there is not a single current Law study on the subject. Due to their geographical proximity, carers are increasingly being brought to Germany from Poland in particular. Freedom of movement must not be used to circumvent European and national labour protection laws. According to Art. 31 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, the member states must guarantee decent working conditions, such as the limitation of maximum working hours. In particular, employee protection rights must not be circumvented through the use of bogus self-employed workers or secondments under bogus service contracts. The scientific investigation of the legal framework conditions in the care sector is therefore particularly urgent, as due to the special features of the employment conditions (working abroad, low degree of organisation) only a few employees file complaints, regulatory problems are not clarified by case law and there is therefore a risk of tolerated abuse of rights.

Against this legal background, the project will clarify the following legal framework conditions, among others:

• legal categorisation of the employment of care workers, in particular under Polish law, as the law of the country of origin is decisive for the examination of the contractual conditions in the case of temporary employment under Art. 8 Rome I Regulation,
• where German law applies, an examination of the admission of the contractual conditions of care workers (permissible minimum working conditions such as maximum working hours or the minimum salary, e.g. for the deployment of 24-hour care workers) and classification of the contract (employment contract, temporary agency work, self-employment),
• social law classification of the contractual relationship, as in the case of cross-border deployment of employees or cross-border activities of self-employed persons, secondment certificates from the state in which the employee usually works determine the social security obligation and thus also the question of whether an employment relationship exists under European law for the country of deployment (limits of this binding effect).