Switzerland - Union federation launches minimum wage initiative - January 25, 2011

The Swiss Federation of Trade Unions (SGB/USS) has launched a people’s initiative to establish a national minimum wage. The campaigners have until July 2012 to gather at least 100,000 signatures to force a nationwide vote. “There has been massive pressure on lower and average wages for the past 20 years,” federation president Paul Rechsteiner argued at a press conference. SGB/USS proposes that minimum wages should also be achieved via a general contract, which lays down conditions covering all workers in a particular industry or enterprise (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 December 2010).

English: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Unions_launch_minimum_wage ... via http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Switzerland

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 at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.