Switzerland - Confederation proposes national minimum wage - April 29, 2010

The SGB/USS trade union confederation has drafted a policy calling for a national minimum wage that it will put to delegates at a meeting on 17 May. The confederation argues that too many workers are not covered by collective agreements. Even though collective agreements can be extended, there are some sectors without any collective agreements and so this would still leave many workers without pay protection. The union wants a national minimum wage for 2011 set at CHFr 22 (Euro 15) an hour or CHFr 3,500 (Euro 2,385) a month, with the cantons (regional governments) having the right to implement higher minimum wages if they want to.

English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/364;

German: http://www.sgb.ch/presse.php;

French: http://www.sgb.ch/f-presse.php

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.