Proposition 54K1873

Projet de loi portant des dispositions diverses en matière de statut social des travailleurs indépendants.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

June 2, 2016

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

working life motherhood parental leave pension scheme social-security contribution social security self-employed person health insurance

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PVDA | PTB PP VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

June 29, 2016 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I agree with the written report.

Please keep the word for the general discussion, Mr. Friart, please.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mr. Minister, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, this bill is part of the will of our government, our majority, to value the social status of self-employed workers, who are, we must recognize it, the real engine of the economy of our country.

In this context, this bill is also ⁇ concerned with female entrepreneurship. This bill contains three main provisions. The first is an exemption from social contributions for self-employed women, who discontinue their activity as a result of a birth, without affecting social benefits, namely family allowances, disability insurance and pension. The second provision is a new legal basis in response to a series of previous opinions of the State Council on a whole series of other bills in order to provide legal certainty for provisions promoting the conciliation between professional and private life of self-employed workers. There are three things therefore: primo, the help to self-employed women who have just given birth, in order to help them resume their professional activity, in this case a home aid of a household nature. Second, the adoption allowance is also in favor of self-employed workers. And tertio, the close assistant allowance for self-employed workers who interrupt their activity in order to provide care to a seriously ill close person or their disabled child. The third provision concerns the updating of various provisions to refer to the insurance applicable to maternity care.

Here it is worth to welcome the Minister’s work and encourage him to continue on this path.

It will also be recalled that several measures taken by the government, such as the tax shift – which concerns in particular a reduction in charges for self-employed – also aim to encourage vocations, allowing everyone to create their own business and thus become an independent worker. The figures, by the way, testify to the results recorded by our majority. It was recently reminded: in 2015, 87,000 companies were created – a record figure.

In recent years, the MR, through Minister Sabine Laruelle, had already obtained – and it was not always easy – a substantial revaluation of the status of self-employed workers. Minister Borsus continues this action. MR Group welcomes this and will continue to support it in its various steps aimed at revaluing the status of entrepreneur. Moreover, this revaluation often and generally results in job creation.

Mr. Minister, I would like to make a brief speech, because my group fully supports the bill and I would like to express my appreciation for that work.

The bill is an important additional step in strengthening the social status of the self-employed, as 34% of all joined self-employed are women and we find that many of those self-employed women follow the difficult combination of private life and work as a major threshold to start as self-employed.

For this reason, and because a survey shows that self-employed persons are perfectly prepared to contribute in solidarity to the strengthening of the social status of self-employed persons on maternity rest and maternity assistance, this bill has succeeded in achieving an improvement of the social status, especially for self-employed women. On the one hand, the extension of the maternity leave by four weeks, which we can only welcome; on the other hand, it is possible to take the maternity leave half-time. A third major measure in the bill is the exemption from the payment of social contributions for female self-employed persons for the quarter following the birth.

We fully agree with these three points of strengthening the social status of maternity rest. We have asked for it and negotiated with it. We fully support the bill.

Asked by our group why the measures will not enter into force until 1 January 2017, the Minister replied that the government needs a transitional period to be able to take all measures and to give the health funds the opportunity to prepare for the new situation. Of course we would have preferred the measures to come into force as soon as possible, but we understand the preparatory phase of the new scheme.

The new measures also have a cost, as previously cited by colleague Friart. The estimate for the reduction of social contributions is 13.6 million euros per year. Thanks to the tax shift, because also in this area the tax shift has provided some support, it was possible to release additional resources for the social status of the self-employed. This can be used to finance the additional investments for the strengthening of the social status of the self-employed.

Finally, the draft law provides for a clearer legal basis for the three existing provisions in the social statute, namely maternity allowance, adoption allowance and mantel care allowance, which promote the reconciliation between the professional and private lives of the self-employed.

We therefore fully support this project and hope to come to implementation soon.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to say to Mr. Friart that self-employed workers are extremely important drivers of our economy. We need companies, we need self-employed workers. But do not despise the other workers who are also the engines for our economy!

The social status of the self-employed must be improved. We have been working on this for years, especially in the previous legislature, as you said. I was a big supporter of this improvement. So, as Minister of Social Affairs, I brought some favorable elements. I am pleased that we are continuing this path.

All this to say that the Socialist Group will support this project that we consider indispensable to improve the quality of life of self-employed workers and, in particular, self-employed women.

There is, of course, no question of denigrating other workers, but simply of recognizing the role of self-employed workers in our economy. I also want to draw attention to the fact that they are often at the basis of many initiatives. That said, all workers have their importance in our country. There will never be enough.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, despite the late hour, I would like to intervene as part of the discussion of this bill because it deals with important topics in the eyes of environmentalists, whether it is the necessary balance between family life and professional life for employees, self-employed, all workers in this country, or it is the support for female entrepreneurship. In any case, these two subjects are linked, as I will show you in a few moments.

When it comes to female entrepreneurship, the INASTI figures are relentless. Only 34% of self-employed workers are self-employed. This proportion has, unfortunately, barely increased in ten years, since in 2004 the proportion of the latter reached 33 %.

In addition, a large proportion (26%) of female entrepreneurs do so as complementary self-employed. In comparison, this is only the case for 21.5% of men. In parallel to this finding, studies, whether they are done by the National Syndicate of Independents or by the UCM, clearly show that one of the main difficulties encountered by independent women in their profession, in their daily life, is precisely the reconciliation, the balance between family life, private life and work life. This is where the link is made between the two topics discussed.

It is therefore urgently necessary to take measures to improve the social status and the balance between work and private life in general, and in particular for self-employed and self-employed persons. This is what this text does, implementing several measures, which Ecolo-Groen has supported for many years, whether it is the allowance granted to close caregivers in case of serious illness or palliative care, the extension of maternity leave by 4 weeks, the possibility to take it in half-time, or even the discharge of a quarter of social contributions for the self-employed woman who discontinues her activity following the birth. We will therefore support this text with conviction, Mr. Minister.

That being said, one axis is cruelly missing in our eyes, and I have already talked about it in the committee. This is the role of fathers, husbands, companions. In other words, Mr. Minister, where are the men in your measures? Whether for family balance, for privacy balance, for encouragement, for support for female entrepreneurship, we do not see men, companions, dads, husbands in this text. This is the axis that is missing in our eyes, because men have a crucial role to play in the balance of family/work life of independent women. To encourage them in their plans, to be there at the time of birth, family enlargement. This is quite crucial and they must be the first to be aware of female entrepreneurship and to shoulder their companions in their projects.

This is why we have submitted a proposal to introduce a 10-day paternity leave for self-employed. This will be discussed in the Committee on Economic Affairs. I hope, Mr. Minister, that you will be as constructive on its adoption as we are on this bill.

Many things have already been said. You know that we had submitted a bill on the same subject, but it went further. I will come back to it in a moment.

My main message concerns the situation of independent women, and more ⁇ maternity leave. The state considers them to be half-mothers since until now they were only entitled to half the maternity leave. This is not acceptable in the 21st century. Our country has 310,000 independent women, which represents one-third of the independent women.

While it seems obvious to no longer consider these women as half-mothers, in our bill we would go further, even though we can join you, including on the part of the exemption from payment of social contributions. This is an important part since their income is, at that time, null, since they are on maternity leave.

We wanted to go further, in particular, on the benefit of service titles. To be in contact with the self-employed women who have benefited, I can tell you that the administrative obstacles to the granting of these titles-services, which allow them to resume activity, are important. We advocate for some form of systematization of these service titles in order to allow them to access them much faster. We need to make this system less complex.

I ask you, Mr. Minister, to make arrangements in this regard, by making maternity aid automatic, with the services titles. A number of self-employed mothers are not entitled to these service titles simply because they have not even benefited from this information. The deadlines are then exceeded. At this point, the aid is lost. This is really a pity.

We need to go further on maternity leave. This is a satisfactory step, but we advocate that we go further. Still, today, unacceptable situations exist, as some women are not entitled to maternity benefits because they change their socio-professional status. In comparison, Belgium was condemned by the Court of Justice of the European Union in May 2015 for the imposed conditions of internship depriving these women of benefits during maternity leave due to their changing status. It is urgently necessary to correct these provisions on stage conditions.

Facilitating mixed careers and thus facilitating occupational mobility is also a major element. Today, this professional mobility, these mixed careers are penalized, because they are not taken into account. We have submitted a bill on this subject. We are well aware of the small play of the majority in this regard, but by depositing this text and repeating the message as often as necessary, I dare to hope that it will one day become concrete and that these provisions will be corrected. In any case, you are not entitled to escape it as it is a sentence of May 2015 by the European Court of Justice.

Mr. Minister, in a word like one hundred, if we want to allow women to start when they have hesitations, if we want tomorrow, even young wage women who want to start their self-employed activity take the step, if we want tomorrow, female entrepreneurship can be much more developed than it is today, there will be, I say clearly, new steps to take both on social status, occupational mobility and mixed careers that, more than yesterday, and even more tomorrow than today, will be relevant. I thank you.

I have no other registered speaker. I give you the floor, Mr. Minister.

First of all, I would like to thank all groups for their support and their positive message. Of course, I have the deepest respect for all the actors in the world of work, regardless of the regime in which they work. My particular mission is to be Minister of the Independents and therefore to take the step forward of the status of the Independents. Thank you for helping us, thank you for suggestions.

I would like to emphasize that this is the eighth additional provision in favour of independent workers taken since the beginning of this legislature, that is, every two and a half months, there is an improvement in the status. I recall the previous steps: the file of the minimum pensions, the accounting of the quarters of the end of the career, the measures for the benefit of the self-employed who dedicate themselves to close caregivers, Ms. Fonck, the right-pass for cessations for forced economic cause, the reductions of social contributions started this year. There is still, on the one hand, the provisions for the independent who engages, and on the other hand, the increase in tax deductions. Finally, these provisions contain a technical component of solidification of the legal basis, but above all provisions aimed at improving the status of women, independent mothers.

There will be other steps and I take note of Ms. Fonck’s intervention regarding her proposal for the articulation of the statutes, which I have studied with the utmost care. I reassure you, I have no problem in approving an idea, whether it comes from one bank or the other of this assembly.

Furthermore, I would also like to mention the fact that these provisions seem original to me. They were the result of a very broad consultation with representative organizations. They effectively regain the possibility to interrupt a maternity leave, segment it and finally take it in half-time, the period being effectively extended by four weeks.

Mr. Fonck, as regards the titles-services, I was sensitive to this finding. From now on, the issuance of service titles will be semi-automatic. Not automatic because I’m not going to give service titles to someone who would explicitly refuse them, I can’t imagine that. Everyone will be offered them, it will be about informing everyone, having a move that says "you will receive titles-services. Unless you take a step back to reject them, we will send them to you.” It seems to me to be almost automatic and respectful of the will of the people.

This is part of the overall measures on support for female entrepreneurship in the law through the various interventions I have heard.

As I committed to it, Mr. Vanden Burre. I know there is a reflection to be made about paternity leave. In this regard, we have various studies already available as well as budget projections. I hope to be able to meet your expectations before the end of the legislature.

I would like to thank you very warmly for your support for these arrangements that I find important for a large number of independent and of course for the independent activity in general. I thank you.