(MENAFN- Swissinfo)
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Schweizer Lohnschutz – ein Modell für die EU? (original) 中文
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瑞士对工资的保护能否成为欧盟的榜样 Français
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La protection des salaires en Suisse fait très envie dans l'UE Pусский
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Подойдет ли ЕС швейцарская модель борьбы с зарплатным демпингом? 中文
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瑞士對工資的保護能否成為歐盟的榜樣 Italiano
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La protezione dei salari in Svizzera suscita invidia nell'UE Share Facebook Twitter E-mail Print Copy link
Talks between Bern and Brussels are on hold. In Bern, the EU file has been shelved. It won't be re-opened before federal elections at the end of October.
But Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis wants to persuade his colleagues in the Swiss government to negotiate with Brussels – finally – as early as November.
In Switzerland the fault line now runs between the political left and the right. Essentially, two EU demands are causing resistance at home. The right does not want the European Court of Justice to become the ultimate arbiter between Switzerland and the EU. They talk about foreign judges. Most of the other parties do not want such judges either.
And the left does not want EU citizens to work cheaply in Switzerland. It defends Swiss wage protection. This has been the case for more than 20 years, and it is what almost all the other parties want.
So wage protection is the tough, non-negotiable core of the Swiss position. The reason for that is a consenin Switzerland for this system.
It is worth taking a new look at this obstacle that Brussels has always wanted to negotiate into oblivion. One aspect in particular has received little attention: Swiss trade unions are fighting a proxy battle.
Fighting for Europe's trade unions The Swiss Trade Union Federation, which is at the forefront of defending wage protection, is also fighting for EU trade unions. With its finely balanced wage protection measures and so-called accompanying measures, Switzerland is to them a shining example, even the trailblazer. They want the same thing. They want to apply the model developed in Switzerland across the EU – so it is strategically important to them that Switzerland does not cave in.
Luca Cirigliano, secretary of the Swiss Trade Union Federation, said at a panel talk:“Our European partners at the European Trade Union Confederation plead with us: 'Don't say yes under any circumstances. Say no. Because we want more accompanying measures in the EU. If you give way, then our project for future accompanying measures in the EU is at risk'.”
Matter of principle Urban Hodel, a spokesperson for the Swiss Trade Union Federation, told SWI swissinfo.ch:“In case of doubt, the EU Commission is always on the side of the market. So we have to work with the trade unions across Europe to develop the internal market in a way that benefits workers.”
Roland Erne, a professor of European industrial relations at University College Dublin, confirms this.“It seems like a conflict between Switzerland and the EU, but it's a labour conflict. And those are automatically transnational,” he said.
Let's put all this in context. Seven years of negotiations for a framework agreement broke off in 2021; since then, ten exploratory rounds on the bilateral relationship and more than 30 talks between the European Union and Switzerland have all led nowhere. And those who led the way say this is not about Switzerland at all.
They say the battle line is not between two states, but between employers and labour.
A case of wage dumping from 2011 uncovered: Slovakian workers who spent the night in these beds in a bunker in Bern were paid five euros an hour, according to their own statements. Keystone / Peter Klaunzer
It's astonishing. But if you talk to people close to the trade unions, you quickly find out that this is not astonishing but par for the course. Because the left has always been transnationally oriented,“international solidarity” is part of its genetic make-up.
The European question as leverage Rebekka Wyler is co-general secretary of the Swiss Social Democratic Party. Ten years ago, in her doctoral thesis, she concluded that“Swiss trade unions have recently increased their international engagement”. Since then, over the past decade, they have become even more internationally active. The Swiss left, the trade unions and the Social Democratic Party have never before been as connected globally, Wyler says.
Her 364-page doctoral thesis is titled“Swiss Trade Unions and Europe”. Much of it reads today like a strategic anticipation of the past ten years of Swiss European policy. Wyler noted, for example, that the“Europeanisation of Swiss politics offered trade unions a moment of leverage”, which they soon recognised and used efficiently in the early 2000s.
Historic achievement In concrete terms, the discussions on bilateral agreements between Switzerland and the EU enabled Swiss trade unions in 1999 and 2004 to push through long-sought, comprehensive wage protection measures in a“real power play”, according to Wyler.
The right-wing spoke of blackmail at the time. Switzerland needed the approval of the left for the agreement with the EU – and, as Wyler writes,“the trade unions used a window of opportunity to push through demands that would otherwise scarcely have found a majority”.
This is how Swiss wage protection came into being 20 years ago: a major achievement for Swiss trade unions – and now they are defending it.