After the no to the pension initiative: does working life come now?

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After the polls closed on Sunday, Matthias Müller (31) spoke of a “pitch black” day. And actually the day couldn’t have been worse for the ambitious chairman of the Young Liberals. And the massive no to the Jungfreisinn pension initiative may have outweighed the yes to the 13th AHV pension. The pension initiative was rejected with 74.7 percent of the votes.

This means that Müller will have to accept one of the worst votes in the history of popular initiatives. Not a single community across the country voted for it.

Automaticity and bad timing

One reason for the strong rejection is certainly that the initiative came to the ballot box so quickly after the retirement age for women was raised, Müller told Blick. And the initiative’s proposed automatic linking of retirement age to life expectancy was probably not well received.

But the subject is not off the table. In the coming months, perhaps even years, no one will burn their fingers by raising the retirement age. But in the medium term there is probably no way around it.

Model of working life

What the discussion will lead to after a certain cooling-off phase became clear during the Blick elephant meeting with the party leaders. FDP leader Thierry Burkart (48) recalled the concept of lifelong working time: after that, a certain number of working years would be determined; those who start working earlier can also retire earlier.

SP co-chair Mattea Meyer (36) did not want to ignore this discussion entirely, but countered that the devil was in the details: how would part-time work be credited and how would care work, which women often do for free these days, be credited?

A report from the Federal Council can answer these questions. Last year, the National Council and the Council of States instructed the Federal Council to investigate the lifelong working model. The initiator of the report was the then centrist National Councilor Ruth Humbel (66).

Source:Blick