The Increasing Room for Collective Bargaining on Behalf of Self-Employed Persons

When self-employed persons work side by side with employees in the same enterprise, the question may arise as to why there is a difference in working conditions between these categories and whether this difference is justified. When they do not work side by side, but are to a large degree economically dependent on one or more counterparties, differences in remuneration and other working conditions are questionable as well.

In recent years more room has been created for collective bargaining and collective agreements for categories of self-employed persons in order to reduce unjustified differences between self-employed persons and employees. This development is the topic of this article. We will not only discuss the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the recent guidelines of the European Commission on this issue, but also – as a case study –collective labour agreements with provisions on solo self-employed persons that have been adopted in the Netherlands, as experiences with these may be relevant to making actual use of the increased room for collective bargaining.