Regulating minimum wage and other forms of pay for the self-employed (a Eurofound report)

On 30 November 2022, Eurofound published its research report, carried out in the context of the three-year pilot project (2021–2023), ‘Role of the minimum wage in establishing the Universal Labour Guarantee’, mandated to Eurofound by the European Commission.
It aims to understand how minimum wages, wage rates, tariffs, fees and other forms of pay could be fixed for specific jobs or professions in sectors with a high level of ‘vulnerable’ workers and ‘concealed’ self-employed by mapping national and sectoral approaches.

Statutory minimum wages do not apply to independent workers. However, there are some examples of ‘minimum fees’ that independent workers could get through statutory regulations or, eventually, agreements to map national/sectoral approaches to regulate minimum wages, tariffs or fees of the self-employed. The issue is how.

The research shows that multiple types of self-employment exist, with very different characteristics and powers.

The report identified 14 Member States with comparatively extended rights of representation and collective bargaining rights for the self-employed (Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden).

Trade union representation for self-employed people is allowed in 16 of the 27 Member States, by labour law (Belgium, Croatia, France, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Spain and Sweden), by the Constitution (Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France and Slovenia) or by trade union statutes (Austria, Germany, Greece and Ireland). In contrast, competition law provides the legal basis in the Netherlands.

Only three Member States – Estonia, Romania and Slovakia – do not allow trade union representation for the self-employed on the grounds of labour law.

13 Member States have statutory minimum wages or other forms of payment for the self-employed: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia have minimum wages for specific groups of self-employed people, while Hungary and Poland, a general statutory minimum wage for workers also applies to the self-employed. The remaining 14 Member States are without statutory minimum wages or other forms of payment for the self-employed.

Only eight Member States have collectively agreed on minimum wages and other forms of payment for the self-employed: Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands and Slovenia. The remaining 19 Member States are without collectively agreed minimum wages or other forms of pay for the self-employed.