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Higher paid employees
30. Some social security measures exclude from the scope of application persons earning remuneration in excess of a prescribed limit. This is the case, for example, in many workmen's compensation schemes based on the principle of individual employer's liability as well as in some social insurance schemes of the past. The exclusion of higher paid employees is a relic of the time when social security vas regarded as a measure specifically for the protection of the lower classes and when they were assumed to be able to make their own private arrangements for protection against the contingencies covered by social security. This assumption ceased to exist as a result of the social and economic changes consequent upon the Second World War. Furthermore, from the technical point of view the remuneration limit unduly complicates the administration of the social insurance scheme, since individuals might have wages above and below the limit in the consecutive periods. It has been swept away in the name of social solidarity, on the basis of which contemporary social security is established. On the other hand, a considerable number of the existing social insurance schemes contain provisions which specify a maximum of earnings to be taken into account in calculating the amount of contribution to be paid and that of benefit payable, and whereby employees whose earnings exceed the maximum are also compulsorily covered by the scheme but pay the contribution, and receive the benefit, on the basis of that maximum.
Casual workers
31. Coverage by social insurance schemes of casual workers is one of the problems confronting many countries. The contributions paid in respect of them may be wasted, since the qualifying conditions for benefits will, in many cases, not be satisfied, while both employers and workers, and the social insurance institutions, are obliged to carry out the formalities of registration and maintenance of contributi on records. It is also difficult to determine whether or not the worker
has the intention of earning his living as an employee. However, in the case of social insurance covering the contingency of employment injury, the coverage of casual workers does not raise the same administrative difficulties,
since in this
particular case it is usual, and perhaps justifiable, not to provide for a qualifying period for the entitlement to benefit which should be granted whenever the accident happened if he was in employment. Thus in a number of countries casual worker are covered for at least the employment injury branch, in respect of which only employers pay the contributions.
Commercial and non-manual workers
32.
Some enactments of social security exclude employees in commerce and/cr non-manual workers. This is particularly the case in workmen's compensation laws of many countries. The distinction between industry and commerce or between manual labour and non-manual work is however not easy to draw in practice. The criterion of danger is not adequate by itself, because a wide range of commercial undertakings
present an accident risk equal to, ΟΙ greater than, some branches of the
manufacturing industry. Not only are there risks involved in all kinds of transport and dock work, but also in the handling of heavy goods in shops and also in butchering and window cleaning. Thus many social insurance schemes tend to make no
distinction in this respect.
Public employees
33. The officials and the permanent wage-earning staff of the State and of local and other public authorities are often left out of social insurance on the grounds that better benefits are already available to them. There is, however, a tendency to cover all the employees in both public and private sectors by a single scheme. It should also be mentioned that exclusion from the common scheme of employees in the public sector offends against the concept of solidarity between the different groups of the gainfully-occupied population.
Self-employed
34.
The application of social insurance to independent workers or persons working on their own account (self-employed persons) present some difficulties.
The
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