UNIEP Policy day Brussel12 November 2012

The European connection: Challanges of the Dutch painter’s industry 2013

Koninklijke FOSAG Paul Raasveld (secretary general affairs)

• Taxing of employees becomes heavier and heavier

• Self-employed workers donot contribute to the social infrastructure of our industry

• Bogus self-employment increases but there are no solid figures

• Painting companies also incidentally use bogus self-employment in the race for cheap labour

The Netherlands: an open economy

Growing numbers of self-employed

Analyses of the Challenge

• Our collective labour agreement has lost one third of its workers (2007-2012)

• The market is not prepared to pay the price level of the CLA

• Market expectations: do we face a temporary dip or is it structural?

• We expect it to be permanent• Influx of cheap labour goes on:• 1) Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia• 2) Greece, Spain• 3) The level of wages of new EU-members

remains lower than our’s: Poland• The process of leveling wages in the EU is

slower than hoped for; as a result UNIEP-countries will continuously be confronted with cheap labour influx

• Companies that are able to switch to cheap labour will survive: the 25+ companies and the self-employed themselves

• Companies working with mainly or even exclusively permanent employees are facing severe difficulties

Expectations without special measures• The group of painting companies with

1-10 employees will disappear; they are the traditional companies “on every corner of the street”, the biggest group

• 2012: there are two employees on every self-employed; 2016: one employee on every self-employed painter

• The erosion of collective provisions makes a drastic intervention inevitable

What do FOSAG-members say?• 80%: experience more competition on labour

costs• 86%: experience disadvantages for their

companies • 59%: react by lowering its prices• 30%: react by not renewing temporary labour

contracts (and switch to full flexible labour)

Who are our competitors?

• Heaviest competition experienced from:• Self-employed painters (76%)• EU-workers (48%) (whether employees or

self-employed)• Companies from other industries (45%),

mainly building companies

Solutions mentioned by our companies

• 58%: oblige all painters to work within the Collective Labour Agreement

• 55%: raise the formal requirements for beginning painting companies (NB: in Holland there are no formal requirements since 1996)

• But: how realistic are these solutions?

The European dimension

• The 1996 Posting Workers Directive• For the painter’s industry (builders): to

posting workers the main CLA issues of the country in which they work apply

• This was a measure to protect foreign workers but theoretically it could also establish a “level playing field” as to labour costs

• This Directive has been implemented in all member states

Practical application of the Posting Workers Directive

• 2012-2013: political negotiations on the new Directive of Implementation. A directive which describes how EU-member states may implement and enforce the 1996 Directive

• By example: Belgium’s Limosa-system: foreign self-employed must registrate before they can start working legally

• These kind of measures may be developed and implemented on the level of the EU-member state

Additional discussion

• This process may also be used to start a discussion on the definition of: 1) employee and 2) self-employed workers

• What we need are painters in our companies of a new kind : “affordable as self-employed painters” and “trustworthy and craftmanlike as good employees”

And UNIEP…?

• Is UNIEP able to develop a recommendation for the political discussion on the new Directive?

• On Limosa or the like?• If possible, this recommendation

may then be used by UNIEP’s members to lobby in their own country

Dank voor uw aandacht!