Prospect: the self-employed may be given the right to a pension, and unemployment benefits will not be tied to the minimum wage

CrimeaPRESS reports:

They want to ensure a stable pension for the self-employed, and for those who sell their services through aggregator platforms, they will select appropriate social support measures. Both of these areas should be regulated by new federal laws, which deputies will develop and adopt in addition to the Law “On Employment,” the draft of which passed the first reading in March of this year and is now being prepared for the second. Details «Parliamentary newspaper» said the Chairman of the Committee on Labor, Social Protection and Veterans Affairs Yaroslav Nilov.

Give me a fishing rod, show me a pond

— Yaroslav Evgenievich, what is meant by platform employment and why has this topic become so relevant?

— Platform employment implies the presence of some kind of intermediary in the form of a digital platform between the manufacturer and the client, the recipient of services. The closest analogue is taxi aggregators. There is an aggregator that does not have an employment relationship with the taxi driver — it simply distributes information, giving the client the opportunity to receive a certain service through its digital platform. During the development of platform employment, a significant gap has been created in social guarantees for platform workers compared to the guarantees that exist for people in classical labor relations. This is exactly what we plan to eliminate.

— What amendments were made to the bill during finalization?

“There was indeed platform employment in the first reading, but the working group created to finalize the bill in the second reading decided that everything related to platform employment would be regulated by a separate federal law. Therefore, by the second reading, everything related to self-employment and platform employment will be removed from the text of the bill.

The second important change is that previously it was proposed to set the maximum benefit amount at the minimum wage, but now this idea has been abandoned. In order not to give rise to dependent attitudes, when it is not profitable for a person to work, but it is profitable to simply receive benefits. We decided in this way to support the ideology of continuous employment, to create all the conditions so that a person could provide for himself and find a permanent income. That is, we give a fishing rod, point to a body of water and explain how to fish in it — that’s the approach.

— What is the difficulty of introducing people working under the platform employment scheme into the legal field?

— There are no difficulties. But taking into account the fact that both self-employment and platform employment are separate subjects of regulation, and platform employment is also a new phenomenon, we decided to create a basic law on employment, spelling out fundamental positions in it and establishing some regulatory framework. And then open this framework, extend the provisions of the law to the self-employed and to those working in the field of platform employment through separate legislative acts.

Not for the budget, but for retirement

— Will it be possible to transfer the provisions of the law on the self-employed to those who work under the platform employment scheme? Or are there some peculiarities and nuances here?

— Nuances and features, of course, will be required. Including based on the fact that in our country self-employment with a special tax regime is generally a temporary measure. Despite this, eight million people in the country are already registered as self-employed, and demand is growing. At the same time, we see that there are some excesses and shortcomings. For example, when an employer forces a person to resign, when relations with him are transferred to the level of civil law. Or, which is also very serious, the self-employed and those who work under the platform employment scheme do not have pension rights. And as a result, having reached the appropriate age, they were faced with the impossibility of receiving a pension. You also need to think about this.

— How to resolve this issue? Are there any specific proposals already?

“My proposal is that the tax that the self-employed now pay — from four to six percent — should not go to the health insurance fund or to the budget of the region where the person is registered, but to his individual pension account. And so that in this way a small, but still insurance pension is formed.

— It turns out that they will not bring money to the budget and have the right to medical services?

— Everyone has the right to medical services. As for the budget, here we are rather talking about the redistribution of funds. These paid taxes would still go to the social fund one way or another, and then would be used to fulfill social obligations. But, again, I emphasize that this is just a proposal, it also needs to be further discussed and worked out.

— How soon, in your opinion, can the bill be passed?

— I think that the bill will be adopted in the autumn session.

source: «Parliamentary newspaper»

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