The Cassà de la Selva Town Council launches the creation of a common front to defend the rights of self-employed workers and to present a series of concrete proposals to the relevant bodies to improve their situation. This initiative stems from a firm commitment by the Governing Team, which calls for collective solidarity.
To promote this common front, the Town Council has conducted a survey among local self-employed workers to identify their specific needs with the Town Council and proposals for improvement at a national level. This action will allow for broad support to be gathered and generate the necessary leverage to exert effective pressure.
In the coming months, this initiative will continue with sectoral meetings with self-employed workers, organized by the department, to understand their needs in detail and possibilities for collaboration with the administration.
Concurrently, and with the aim of garnering the maximum possible support for the initiative, the Town Council is working on creating a platform for adherence to the pact, open to all self-employed workers, entrepreneurs, and the general public.
The concrete proposals to be advocated include:
- Recognition: recognize the essential role of self-employed workers as a driving force of the local economy and business fabric.
- Contribution Reform: urge institutions to create a contribution system where the contribution is proportional to the income and actual activity of each company.
- Bureaucratic Simplification: streamline administrative procedures through digitalization and a centralized system for labor and tax management. Provide Town Councils with tools and resources to make procedures easier and more agile, while legislation is modified to simplify procedures with the administration.
- Improved Social Protection: self-employed workers cannot have the same legal and tax treatment as large corporations. Taxation is needed that takes into account the characteristics of SMEs and self-employed workers.
- Easier Access to Funding: create credit lines aimed at guaranteeing the liquidity and investment capacity of SMEs and self-employed workers.
- Continuous Training and Support: establish sectoral training and business management programs, with personalized mentoring.
- Cooperation Policies: incentivize the creation of consortia or groups of self-employed workers to share resources and reduce costs.
- Protection Against Late Payments: establish legal mechanisms to guarantee the collection of invoices within the agreed client-supplier term.
This common front seeks a fairer system, with legal certainty, equitable contributions, and social recognition of the role of self-employed workers as drivers of innovation and economic flexibility. “Only through a collective effort can a balanced economy be guaranteed where no one is left behind. The defense of self-employed workers is a shared responsibility that requires the commitment of institutions and society as a whole. From the Town Council, we want to strengthen this commitment and promote initiatives that provide real support to the self-employed and entrepreneurial sector. This is a call to join forces to move towards a fairer system,” concludes the Councillor for Economic Promotion, Àlex Font.
Self-employed workers are the essential driving force of the local and Catalan economy: they generate indirect employment, diversify the labor market, and energize the productive and service sectors. However, they face Social Security contributions without proportionality to their income or actual activity, which are compounded by income uncertainty, the effects of inflation, or difficulties in accessing funding. “Without self-employed workers, a large part of economic activity and the vitality of many sectors would not exist,” states Councillor Àlex Font.
“Cassà de la Selva has always been an entrepreneurial, industrial town with a strong presence of self-employed individuals and small business owners who are the driving force of our local economy. From the Cassà Town Council, we are very clear that anything that favors the defense of self-employed individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises benefits the collective well-being of our town,” states Mayor Pau Presas. He adds that “this common front that we are promoting from Cassà also aims to be a tool to demand from the various administrations the need for structural reforms that allow us to reduce bureaucracy, and have more resources and tools to boost economic activity in our towns and cities.”