Bogus self-employment

Bogus self-employment costs the Irish Exchequer an estimated ¤80 million per year in lost revenue and is a means of exploiting workers and driving down labour costs for employers. It also places workers in a precarious position with losses of entitlements that employees would enjoy such as sick  pay, maternity pay, unemployment bene t, holiday pay, pensions and PPE equipment.  In effect, bogus self-employment means that workers and the Exchequer end up subsidising unscrupulous employers. In the postal/courier sector, due to sustained growth in the parcel delivery business and the liberalisation of the postal market, there has been a marked increase in competition from low-cost competitors entering the market. This, in its turn, has led to an increase in atypical employment relationships such  as self-employment , sub-contracting and casualisation. This practice is not con ned to the postal/courier sector, however, and demands a national response. To enable the relevant unions to develop strategic organising plans to tackle the practice of bogus self-employment, Conference instructs the incoming Executive Council to undertake research to produce a paper, similar to that conducted in the construction sector, on bogus self-employment across all sectors in Ireland.