GERMANY:GERMAN DISCOUNT retailer Lidl has been accused of systematically spying on its employees with hidden cameras and microphones.
News magazine Sternthis morning publishes excerpts from hundreds of pages of reports by a private investigator contracted by Lidl. The reports are peppered with details of employees' conversations as well as assessments of their private lives, their finances and even their toilet habits.
Week by week in 2006 and 2007, the company paid a private investigator to monitor a selection of branches in western Germany. Up to 10 tiny cameras were mounted on the ceiling of the supermarket and its stock and staff rooms. Employees were reportedly told that the detective was present to investigate shoplifting but the Stern report suggests the investigations appeared more interested in Lidl employees.
"The 'relationship' between [ employees] Ms L And Mr H is to be checked - the two are very cosy with each other," noted the detective in one report from September 2007. "Whenever Mr H is on the till he draws a heart on her receipt. When they said goodbye at the cash register on Thursday, they came very close. Unfortunately, I couldn't see exactly if Mr H gave her a kiss on the cheek, but it looked that way to me."
Stern titles its report "The Lidl Stasi" in a nod to the East German secret police. Like Stasi reports, Sternsays, the Lidl reports are "filled with banalities, shot through with dismissive remarks about employees". One employee is described as "not just introverted but also naive". Another "has a circle of drug-taking friends".
When one employee remarked she hoped her wages had landed in her bank account because she really needed the money, the investigator asked: "For what?"
Lidl admitted the use of detectives and hidden cameras yesterday, but said they were used to investigate shoplifting. "Any extra information gathered . . . was at no time and in no way used further," said the company, which had an estimated turnover last year of €44 billion, €13 billion of which is earned in Germany.
The reports did not "in tone or style" reflect management dealings with employees, the company said, and the detective firm no longer worked with Lidl.
Documents seen by Sternsuggest that observation of employees by the investigator, at a reported fee of €1,040 a week, was his central task. "In line with orders, special attention will be paid to anything peculiar concerning employee Ms L, who has registered for bankruptcy," says one report about a branch in Bielefeld.
The investigator observes that Ms L buys a bread roll for lunch, smokes, is sending her child on holiday to Italy and is herself going to Russia. "No sign here of the austerity that normally accompanies bankruptcy," the detective remarks.
German prosecutors have begun examining the reports. Secret observation of employees is illegal in Germany except in exceptional circumstances.