A dedicated working group on social security in Inland Waterways of the European Social Partners is addressing social dumping practices that occur as a consequence of faltering harmonisation in the area of social security.
The working group which in fact is a long standing one within the European Social Dialogue Committee for Inland Waterways.
In order to give a boost ETF contracted an external expert in Social Security harmonisation in European IWT, and asked Cécile Tournaye, former employee of the CCNR responsible for the administrative centre of Social Security.
Through an in depth analysis of the present situation, mainly focussing on social security causing social dumping and this mainly around two specific situations namely:
- Indirect recruitment
- Bogus self-employment
3 possible solutions are assessed in great detail:
- Harmonisation of the visa policy towards third state nationals
- Regulation & control indirect recruitment
- Change of affiliation rules in Regulation 883/2004
During the April 2018 meeting a comprehensive overview of criteria needed to identify possible affiliation to a certain social security regime has been developed and will now be used to identify concrete examples of social dumping practices. At the upcoming September 2018 meeting these examples will be assessed in great detail in order to single out those factors that need to be addressed in order to produce fair working conditions and a level playing field in Europe.
