Construction workers’ calls for strike echoed in Zurich

Christian Kolbe and Ulrich Rotzinger

The weather has never been quieter at Central in Zurich on a Friday afternoon. Police surrounded the intersection in a wide area. Construction workers are coming. Instead of traffic noise, high-pitched whistles can be heard suddenly, and “Sciopero, sciopero” is heard in the throats of the nearly 2,000 construction workers walking through the city in Limmat. Targets: Headquarters of the Swiss Builders’ Association.

Strike calls are still just a threat, but if there is no agreement between unions and craftsmen on a new state contract (LVM), there could be a hot industrial dispute on construction sites next year. With the end of the LVM at the end of the year, the obligation to peace will also come to an end and strikes will be a legitimate means of industrial action. “Nobody would benefit from an industry-wide strike,” says Nico Lutz, (51) head of the construction industry at Unia. But the longer the solution takes, the greater the pressure,” he said.

Closed shutters on builder chair

Nuno Nunes (49) proudly rides in front of the show. The construction machine driver sets the speed of the entire train with his excavator. “It’s important that we fight for our rights,” says the Portuguese. A protest clock was placed in concrete in front of the access road to the builders’ headquarters. It says “Stop hourly theft” on it. This is how the people of Büezer defend themselves against overtime during the summer months, free travel times to construction sites and long working days.

The builders are out, the shutters in the headquarters are closed. Nevertheless, the demands of the construction workers reached Lugano, where the delegates of the association were disturbed by the behavior of their workers. “The House of Delegates strongly condemned the unions’ repeated protests, strikes, and illegal actions, and instructed the Swiss Builders’ Association to take multiple violations of the peace obligation to the national arbitral tribunal,” they said in their statement.

The fronts have hardened: Next Monday, unions and builders will meet for a new round of negotiations. This seventh round should bring results, negotiations have failed six times so far.

there is also work

In the morning the unions move to the construction site next to the main train station with around 800 construction workers and want to show that many construction sites in the canton are not working. But there are exceptions, construction sites where work continues: “I am working because we received clear instructions from our manager that we are not allowed to go on strike today. Otherwise I would have run too,” says Vataj Bajrush (46). My colleague Zajmi Nebi (34) adds: “I would love to be there too. But if I were to perform, who would do the work here?”

Construction workers from Bern and other cantons arrived at noon. Performing will make you hungry, so unions quickly offer a lunch menu at Zurich’s main train station. There’s chicken, stock, and gravy—and the greatest possible attention from train passengers who have to pass the union lunch. The unions sent a signal that the builders could not ignore.