The question of social security obligations has hung over freelance Scrum programmers for many years. They are often classified as bogus self-employed for various reasons. The financial impact on clients and contractors can be significant. The state social court of Baden-Württemberg has recently taken a position on this question in a nationwide first judgment. The judgment is likely to gain significance beyond the individual case.
The judges assume that the plaintiff programmer worked as a freelancer in a Scrum project. He was therefore not subject to the social security obligation or the right to promote employment, i.e. the obligation to pay unemployment insurance. As is usually the case, the circumstances of the individual case are decisive, but here they are so “Scrum-typical” that they can also be used in similar cases.
For security reasons, the freelance Scrum programmer had to provide his services on site at the client. For the judges, these reasons spoke against assuming an integration into the work organization of the client – so far one of the main reasons for the assumption of bogus self-employment.
Several arguments for self-employment
Other elements of the cooperation spoke in favor of the assumption of independence: the programmer chose his own work packages and placed them in a separate development branch. The programming in two-week sprints according to the Scrum method was particularly relevant for the judges. In addition, the programmer had special knowledge and was not given any further specifications before accepting his development work.
The judgment highlights the fine line between non-self-employed and thus subject to social insurance obligations and self-employment. If the Scrum method is implemented consistently, i.e. with changing projects, according to this judgment, in most cases self-employment should exist, despite all previous arguments for an interpretation as bogus self-employment.
Desire to work independently for several clients
For several reasons, this is also the preferred solution for Scrum developers in many cases, since it corresponds to their desire for independent and free work for several clients. However, you then have to think about your own retirement benefits and security in the event of a lack of orders.
A residual risk remains, however, since the social security institutions have the task of flushing as many contributions as possible into the social security funds and are therefore critical of such cases. A clarification by the legislature has therefore been demanded by many for years.
