Switzerland -Public service union backs minimum wage initiative -January 25, 2012

The VPÖD-SSP public services union has leant its support to the initiative by the SGB/USS confederation to submit a petition with 110,000 signatures to the government and regions (cantons) to introduce a national minimum wage. The target wage is 22 CHF (€18) an hour (or 4,000 CHF (€3300) per month based on a 42-hour week). An estimated 400,000 workers currently earn less than this and three quarters of them are women. Unions in the public sector have already secured 4,000 CHF as a minimum wage, although this is under threat from privatisation. Only action by VPÖD-SSP ensured that the minimum would be applied following privatisation of cleaning in Geneva where the employers had wanted to introduce a minimum of only 17 CHF (€14) an hour.

English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/456

German: http://www.vpod.ch/aktuell/nachrichten/ansicht ...  

French: http://www.ssp-vpod.ch/actualites/nouvelles/ansicht ... 

 

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 or the communications officer of the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2012.