House of the self-employed

The project

The House of the Self-Employed opens up new access to information and networking for the self-employed and solo self-employed. Many activities that used to be carried out by employees are now outsourced to self-employed people, especially solo self-employed people, albeit under different conditions. To ensure that solo self-employed workers are not left behind economically compared to employees, it is very important to strengthen joint representation of interests and collective measures - also with regard to their remuneration. So far, however, there has been a lack of opportunities to share experiences and access to knowledge on how to assert rights, help shape working conditions and protect against social risks.

This is precisely where the House of the Self-Employed comes in and makes it its central task to

• to identify and evaluate the needs of this group of workers,
• to facilitate exchange and networking in an analog and virtual space,
• to inform the solo self-employed and platform workers about the collective possibilities for shaping their own working and living conditions, particularly with regard to remuneration and social security,
• provide information about cross-industry training and further education opportunities in the context of digitalization
• develop and test new teaching and learning methods for specific target groups,
• advise on and support collective forms of interest representation,
• to provide a service for settling disputes between the self-employed and their clients.

The self-employed, and in particular the solo self-employed, work in a wide variety of professional fields with an enormous range of skills and working conditions. The House of the Self-Employed is open to all those who want to work together to improve their working conditions. The exchange thrives on the diversity of experiences, whether they were made in traditional self-employment or with new digital services, within an organized association or with an independent initiative. The House of the Self-Employed has its regional roots and physical implementation in Leipzig. Its complementary virtual counterpart also aims to promote the representation of interests in eastern Germany on a supra-regional level and is intended to have an impact on the whole of Germany.

Promotion

The "Haus der Selbstständigen" project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the European Social Fund as part of the "Future Centers - Supporting SMEs, employees and the self-employed in the development and implementation of innovative design approaches to cope with the digital transformation" funding guideline (duration 01.05.2020 - 30.06.2022).

The project network

The "House of the Self-Employed" is a joint project of INPUT Consulting gGmbH, the United Services Union ver.di, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Institute of Sociology) and the University of Kassel (Department of Information Systems and Systems Development)

Contact person

Prof. Dr. Matthias Söllner
Florian Weber, M. Sc.