5/19/2014
GENEVA – Swiss voters on Sunday voted resoundingly against establishing a minimum legal wage of 4,000 Swiss francs (3,270 euros, or $4,478) per month, or 22 francs (18 euros, or $24.65) per hour, official results show.
Seventy-six percent of the voters voted “no” to the unions’ proposal, and the “no” vote won in 19 of the country’s 26 cantons.
The unions, supported by the Socialist and Green Party, launched the initiative as a means of counteracting the growing salary inequality in a country where the cost of living is among the highest in the world.
Switzerland is one of a minority of European countries that lacks a law regulating the minimum wage. Twenty-one of the European Union’s 28 member states have such a law – although Switzerland does not belong to the EU – but the threshold is set much lower than that proposed in the referendum the Swiss voted down on Sunday.
If it had been approved, the minimum wage would have been the highest in the world.
The management associations and the conservative political parties had opposed the measure, arguing that it harmed those whom it was ostensibly trying to protect and warning that it would destroy jobs, and it appears that this stance resonated positively among the country’s voters.
In a separate ballot item, voters decided that Switzerland will have to cancel the purchase of 22 Gripen combat aircraft from Sweden.
Coming out against the fighter jet purchase were 53.9 percent of Swiss voters.
The sale – totaling 3 billion Swiss francs (about $3.36 billion) – was approved last September by the Parliament, and thereafter the “For a Switzerland without an army” group launched a popular initiative against the move that ended up in the scheduling of a referendum.
source
GENEVA – Swiss voters on Sunday voted resoundingly against establishing a minimum legal wage of 4,000 Swiss francs (3,270 euros, or $4,478) per month, or 22 francs (18 euros, or $24.65) per hour, official results show.Seventy-six percent of the voters voted “no” to the unions’ proposal, and the “no” vote won in 19 of the country’s 26 cantons.
The unions, supported by the Socialist and Green Party, launched the initiative as a means of counteracting the growing salary inequality in a country where the cost of living is among the highest in the world.
Switzerland is one of a minority of European countries that lacks a law regulating the minimum wage. Twenty-one of the European Union’s 28 member states have such a law – although Switzerland does not belong to the EU – but the threshold is set much lower than that proposed in the referendum the Swiss voted down on Sunday.
If it had been approved, the minimum wage would have been the highest in the world.
The management associations and the conservative political parties had opposed the measure, arguing that it harmed those whom it was ostensibly trying to protect and warning that it would destroy jobs, and it appears that this stance resonated positively among the country’s voters.
In a separate ballot item, voters decided that Switzerland will have to cancel the purchase of 22 Gripen combat aircraft from Sweden.
Coming out against the fighter jet purchase were 53.9 percent of Swiss voters.
The sale – totaling 3 billion Swiss francs (about $3.36 billion) – was approved last September by the Parliament, and thereafter the “For a Switzerland without an army” group launched a popular initiative against the move that ended up in the scheduling of a referendum.
source
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