Self-Employment
One response to the economic crisis was to set up your own business. Self-employment can bring many satisfactions as ‘you are your own boss’, but it can also lead to a pattern of insecurity and stress.
Some employers are forcing workers into a bogus self-employed status so that they do not have to pay holiday entitlements or make a pension contribution.
Here is what we want to do:
- End bogus Self-employment. There should be a change in the law to favour workers who want to stop bogus self-employment. Employers who try to avoid their legal obligation should be heavily fined to discourage others.
- A new social insurance contract for the self-employed. Instead of paying the same social insurance rate as employed workers and getting virtually no benefits, there should be a special self-employed rate which is higher than the PAYE rate – but guarantees access to key benefits in return. Payment of this new rate would entitle the self-employed to Family Income Supplement, Illness benefit, and unemployment benefit should the business fail. Currently, the self-employed are not entitled to any holidays. The new social contract with the self-employed would guarantee a minimum social welfare payment (€188 a week) for holidays.
2019 Policy Interventions
- End Pay Apartheid
- Repeal FEMPI Legislation
- Restore tax relief for Trade Union subs
- Scrap the Universal Social Charge
