EU Member States should grant standard social protection, including at least 14 weeks' maternity leave allowance, for self-employed women and for wives or life partners of self-employed workers, says Parliament in a binding proposal to update an EU directive.
Compromise amendments agreed with Council say it should be up to Member States to decide whether paying for membership of social insurance schemes (covering maternity leave, sickness, invalidity and old age) must be mandatory for self-employed women or whether they can access this system voluntarily.
The EU is to update an existing law to give standard social protection rights to self-employed workers and the spouses or life partners of self-employed workers. Spouses or life partners are not employees but they nonetheless habitually help the self-employed worker (which is very common in farming, small firms and liberal professions). Self-employed workers, and self-employed workers' assisting spouses could either be given the opportunity to pay to join a social coverage scheme or could be forced to do so, as each Member State chooses, stress MEPs in a sensitive compromise amendment negotiated with the Council at second reading.
In any event, any pregnant self-employed woman or self-employed worker's spouse would be entitled to a "sufficient maternity allowance to cover interruptions at their work" of at least 14 weeks' maternity leave, i.e. the minimum paid maternity leave laid down for normal employees by the EU maternity leave directive.
Again, it will be up to Member States to decide whether the leave is mandatory or voluntary, and whether this social protection can also be "proportional to the participation in the activities of the self-employed worker".
Source:Unite
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