Trade unions demand substantial increases: five percent more wages!

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Strike! Last week, Geneva airport staff went berserk and partially closed the airport for a day. Only an agreement between employees and airport management put a temporary end to the strike. A controversial wage reform is in any case postponed.

The Geneva strike was a foretaste of a hot fall in wages. The trade union federation (SGB) and its associations are going on the offensive throughout Switzerland, demanding a five percent increase in wages for the coming year.

Lampart: “Real wages falling”

“Real wages will fall for the third time in a row in 2023. That hasn’t happened since the Second World War,” complains SGB chief economist Daniel Lampart (54). “As a result, wages today are almost three percent lower than in 2020.” This despite the fact that the economy is doing well and unemployment is low. “While employers complain about a shortage of skilled workers.”

Lampart is therefore clear: “Now we need a trend reversal.” The workers should finally see something of the good economy. The SGB man therefore considers the upcoming wage round to be decisive.

A five percent wage increase is necessary “because all prices and productivity have risen and wages have stagnated for too long”. Inflation is estimated to exceed 2 percent this year.

«3000 francs less per year»

The financial situation of the population has deteriorated noticeably for many. Higher prices for groceries and everyday products put pressure on the wallet. The rising reference interest rate will have a significant impact on rents from the autumn. A further increase in health care premiums is planned for 2024, as well as an increase in sales tax by 0.4 percentage points.

Lampart makes it clear that all this costs purchasing power. “If there is no wage increase, a couple with two children will have 3,000 francs less available in the coming year.”

SGB ​​chairman and SP National Councilor Pierre-Yves Maillard (55) speaks of a real purchasing power crisis and warns of a “general impoverishment of those social classes that depend on their work to provide for their livelihood”.

Bonus of 50 francs for health insurance

But not only wages must be raised, employees must also be relieved in other ways. The trade union federation proposes that the companies contribute to the premiums for health insurance, because then they would also incur healthcare costs.

The SGB considers an additional contribution of 50 francs per month to the health insurance premium appropriate, as is already the case with various industrial companies.

Large demonstration in Bern

The unions are ready to fight. While wage demands and negotiations are being prepared in the wasteland this summer, the SGB associations are preparing for a major national demonstration in Bern.

On September 16, they want to demonstrate in the federal city for higher wages. Maillard: “The demo marks the beginning of a socially decisive autumn.”

Employers are already saying no

A hot autumn is on the agenda, because the employers’ organization has fought the wage demands of the unions in advance. These are neither justified nor acceptable to the company, he said in a press release on Thursday.

The view that employers should pay for rising health insurance premiums, higher rents or the overall increased cost of living in the form of higher wages is “absurd and falls on the wrong logic,” according to the employers’ association. “Wage demands of four percent and more must be clearly rejected.”

Source:Blick