Before writing this column, I have checked if the title existed, and the Google search engine gives 3,460 results. There are articles from 2015, 2019, last year, headed like this. On Tuesday the new self-employed quota was applied, and Social Security mistakenly charged 220 euros more than about 8,000; that of others increased by 8.6% without prior notice. There was chaos, commotion, and the umpteenth confirmation that the situation does not seem to improve for the self-employed.
The main problem is the lack of knowledge about being autonomous. Until you’re not, you don’t understand what it’s all about. And when you are, you don’t understand anything because, whatever you do, almost everything penalizes. The situation of a dentist is not the same as that of a screenwriter, that of a builder is not similar to that of a translator, nor that of a hairdresser to that of an organic farmer, which makes it difficult to achieve the necessary cohesion to claim common interests. In addition, beyond the tantrum in networks, the self-employed cannot afford to protest any more than they can afford to get sick, ask for sick leave or take a vacation.
Their benefits are derisory and the time that they do not produce, they do not bill. A time that they also dedicate to roles that have nothing to do with their profession, such as accounting, or playing the role of collector of the tailcoat; especially if they have done some service for the public administration, capable of taking ninety days to notify you that you forgot to put the file number on the electronic invoice and ask you to send it again. And let another ninety go by before I pay you. Meanwhile, you must advance the quarterly VAT.
Many are self-employed because they have no other. There will be more and more because they are cheap and, due to the cost that it brings, they guarantee their competitiveness. The liberal discourse has capitalized on them and perhaps for this reason self-styled left-wing politics is not very interested in them, even though they exceed three million people; It is as if he only contemplated them as a source of collection. On top of that, the idea that they are peseteros, selfish and whiny is spreading socially, when they come to be the workers of the system. The result is that they are given little respect. And if that doesn’t change, the title of the article will remain valid forever and ever.
