Bill zzp dossier: repeat of moves

At the beginning of October, outgoing Minister Van Gennip (Social Affairs and Employment) made public the bill "clarifying assessment of employment relationships and legal presumption. The legal presumption of employment under a rate of €32.24 is going to improve the position of vulnerable workers at the base of the labor market. A good proposal that specifically targets the group of working people who deserve more protection. But the proposal to replace the DBA law and the three proposed criteria are not going to provide the needed clarity. In fact, we are heading for the same impasse as in 2016 with the DBA law.

The minister proposes three criteria: 1) what is the work content management like, 2) is there organizational embedding, and 3) does the self-employed person work for his own account and risk. This is merely a ranking of existing case law. The criteria are not sufficiently clearly defined. And it is a missed opportunity that entrepreneurial criteria are not more firmly anchored in the new proposal, even though the House of Representatives has previously expressed a positive opinion on them.

The embedding criterion, which dictates that in principle a self-employed person cannot fill a position that a colleague in permanent employment also performs, is not going to provide the desired clarity. Or worse: many workers who consciously choose self-employment end up in an uncertain situation. The result: a repetition of moves, a gray area and a lot of ambiguity. And if clients, freelancers and intermediaries do not want anything in the current tight labor market, it is unrest.