Dutch freelance painters go to court over compulsory pension

Self-Employed Construction is suing the Dutch pension fund for
painters BPF Schilders. The interest group demands that the pension
fund no longer obliges freelance painters to join the fund and pay
premiums.

According to Jan-Koen Sluijs, lawyer of Self-Employed Construction,
the obligation, which other independent contractors don’t have, is in
contravention with the competition law and European law.

“We have long tried to work things out with BPF. But the pension fund
refuses to cooperate in finding an amicable solution,” the interest
group’s chairman Charles Verhoef told the Financieele Dagblad.

Verhoef says that independent contractors don’t want high pension
premiums. Freelancers need to pay both the employer and employee
contributions. The interest group is also frustrated with BPF. “It
sent incorrect premium invoices, it didn’t take into account painters
who were unemployed during the crisis. Then the premium still had to
be paid.”

In a response, BPF Schilders pointed out that in 2015 the Ministry of
Social Affairs again renewed for another five years the obligation for
independent painters to join the fund. “We confidently await a
juridical procedure, if it will indeed take place,” chairwoman Cathrin
van der Werf says in the FD.

The news comes at a time when there is a lot of discussion about the
increase in the number of independent contractors in the Netherlands.
Experts fear independent contractors are saving too little for
retirement and will therefore heavily depend on social benefits.

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