Organising, representing and service for self-employed what role for trade unions?

Transcription

1 Organising, representing and service for self-employed what role for trade unions? Gunter Haake ver.di - Referat selbststaendige.verdi.de

2 Political obstacles/problems/challenges when deciding to set up a department within the trade union ver.di (= United Services Union) merger of 5 unions only one organised freelancers => self-employed (if noticed) = mythical creatures such as competitors without exception bogus self-employed and precarious or: egoistic entrepreneurs without any trade union awareness individual support need a lot of human und financial ressources - 2 -

3 Political and organisational implications fulfill your claims We accompany colleagues through all phases of their workinglife. and We want to organize all the people who work with their hands and minds. (ver.di-chairman Frank Bsirske) Awareness: growing number of (temporarily) self-employed are a visible part of the changing working environment a chance (and need for change) for trade unions! => self-employment as an intersectoral phenomenon (like other atypical workers) => need of new means of organisation / services (example mediafon ) - 3 -

4 Collective Bargaining European Competition Law hinders essential market transparency hinders and forbids (new) SME recommendations (our alternative: fee survey) German exceptions Collective bargaining possible for economically dependent and socially vulnerable self-employed (half / one third of the income from one client e.g. public broadcast) Law on Authors' rights contracts allows to bargain a minimum fee for creative branches - 4 -

5 Lobbying to improve social security Background: Germany is one of the few European countries where self-employed (with a few exceptions) are not covered by statutory protection systems Main Problems: (New) Laws relate to employers an overlook self-employed e.g. special calculation of the parental benefit / unemployment the costs (with regard of the income) broken insurance biographies high percentage of poverty in old age Activities: Promoting visibility Combating the prejudice of the rich self-employed Call for a requirement for employers/clients to contribute to the costs of social security - 5 -

6 Creating a specialized entity... The service point for self-employed project-phase: June 2000 until Jan (now: Ltd.) project followed experiences micro-enterprises-initiative of the ministry for education and science - 6 -

7 Targets job-related information and networking of and for all showing and using competence new forms of union-work (for new client-groups) transparency/stabilisation of the market cooperation with target-group-relevant initiatives and actors like social insurance etc. realizing revenue from not unionized customers - 7 -

8 Main characteristics main target-group: freelancers working for media-, culture-, education- and IT-companies offering: job-related informations, support of cooperations and self-marketing structure: virtual consulting-bureau expert-knowledge via web & callcenter technical structure: cloud-based central server, public internet-presence, intranet for consultants - 8 -

9 Benefits for customers and ver.di quick performance broad competence flexibility concentration on priorities / relief for union-workers controlling-opportunities decision-management knowledge-management and -transfer advantage over competitors - 9 -

10 cloud and browser based technology external (internet-)functions internal (intranet-)functions team-communication database-integration process-improvement

11 browser based database

12 Internet services news / newsletter ( copies) salaries ( European Competition Law) seminars self-employed-handbook online Differenciation of service depending on status (e.g. member /non-member)

13 Homepage (to be relaunched)

14 contact mediafon GmbH - c/o ver.di Paula-Thiede-Ufer 10, Berlin Tel info@mediafon.net web: