New rules announced for home workers

The government this morning announced new rules for workers doing work at home to supplement their earnings. The type of work often involves assembly work, and can be done in one’s own time.

Equality Minister Helena Dalli said the new rules would govern" a type of work that does not fall under an employer-employee relationship".

Dalli was addressing a press conference announcing the changes, together with Employment minister Evarist Bartolo and Social Solidarity minister Michael Falzaon, where she said that after the department of Labour had concluded that the type of work did no fall under the country’s employment laws, because of the absence of this relationship, the need was felt to introduce a regulatory framework. 

"This is a type of work people do to supplement their earnings," she said, explaining that in many cases, employers would find it cheaper to do the work on a production line but chose to use home workers as a form of corporate social responsibility. 

Social solidarity minister Michael Falzon said that the Social Security Act would be Changed since as it stands this type of worker is considered to be self-employed.

Falzon said home workers could choose not to pay a social contribution on earnings up to 50% of minimum wage and would for those on benefits, earnings of up to 30% of minimum wage would not be means tested 

Shortly before last June's general election, then Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Arnold Cassolla had claimed that Playmobil was exploiting workers by having people assemble their products at home, paying them rates far lower than the minimum wage. It was also recently reported in the media that the company was effectively running a 'cheap labour' scheme employing prison inmates.  Asked whether the new rules were related to the case, Employment minister Evarist Bartolo confirmed it was one of the reasons for the change.

Bartolo said that after its efforts to fight precarious work as well as ensuring that workers employed through government schemes are paid as much as other workers, the government was now looking to regulate another sector to reduce the chance of exploitation. 

Bartolo was also asked whether given that people were increasingly struggling to make ends meet, that they might he forced to do such a job and end up being paid less than minimum wage rates. The minister push back against claims that poverty was increasing and stressed that avoiding exploitation was the premise behind the changes.

"We want to regulate it so that [this] can't happen," he said.