Workers don't get their money. It is simply stolen from them. His estimate applies not just to the work at Potsdamer Platz but at other building sites in Berlin, the city which shelters more illegal migrants than any other in Germany. On some sites where Lawandowski has worked he was not paid at all. He says the German government knows very well what is going on.
Big companies hand work to contractors who then subcontract the work out.
An assignment might end up being sub-contracted out ten times or more, and the final small contractor may never have any intention of paying his foreign workers, even though they are only promised a fraction of what a German worker would expect to be paid. Lewandowski is now prepared to talk publicly about his experiences. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the tightening of Germany's asylum regulations in 1993, the numbers of illegal migrants have been steadily increasing. But last year only three per cent of the 135,500 who applied for asylum were successful. Another 4.5 per cent were allowed to stay on - but only for a limited period.