Labor Office Head Accused of Illegal Hires

Frank-Jürgen Weise, the head of Germany's Federal Labour Agency, permitted illegal work during his term as manager of a private company, German business daily Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday. Weise allegedly paid 20 warehouse workers in cash in at least one instance during his time as head of the supervisory board of the logistics company Microlog in early 2002. "We discussed how we could keep down the costs for a big weekend project," a former employee of the company was quoted in the paper as saying. "Weise agreed that the employees could be paid under the table." Weise, who took over the helm of the Federal Labor Agency in February this year from his controversial predecessor Florian Gerster, however has rejected the accusations. "I was never aware of the deployment of illegal workers during my time at Microlog. The social policies were clear-cut and would have never allowed it," Weise said.