Confederation supports the fight against undeclared work

The European Commission has proposed the creation of a European Platform to improve cooperation at EU level in order to prevent and deter undeclared work more effectively. The Platform would bring together various national enforcement bodies involved in the fight against undeclared work, a phenomenon that causes serious damage to working conditions, fair competition and public budgets.

The Eurobarometer survey from 2013 showed that four percent of the respondents have admitted that they had performed undeclared work sometime in the past. Eleven percent of the respondents have said that they had bought a product or a service which had probably been  the result of undeclared work.

The proposed Platform would be composed of Member States' national enforcement authorities, such as labour inspectorates, tax and social security authorities, plus the European Commission.

The move of the Commission on the issue of undeclared work in EU 27 states lasts long. Since 2008 the member states have made several steps to battle this phenomenon, however, the results aren’t satisfactory so far. Since April 9^th of this year, more effective crusade should start as the Commission launched the process to prevent the undeclared work.

Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic supports this important step as promising measures should be undertaken in order to tackle undeclared work, especially in relation to the so-called “švarc system” (the employer-employee relations with a person exercising the employer's normal activities not being an employee in legal terms but acting as an independent entrepreneur) are among the biggest issues on the Czech labour market nowadays.

According to some estimations, the Czech state loses about five billion CZK (180 million euros) annually in the form of uncollected taxes, unpaid revenues and health and social insurance payments. New changes to the Czech labour legislation that came into force in 2012 were envisaged to tackle undeclared work, reduce tax evasions and fight shadow practices on the labour market.

It should also prevent social deprivation and other threats to the society by shifting the competences to conduct random checks. The controls of firms and businesses were transferred to the State Labour Inspection Offices, but yet with no significant success. So if the aim and efforts of the Commission will indeed be materialized soon and brought to life by any insistent legal tool, not only our Confederation shall greet and support such step.

How would the Platform work?