The Swiss Remain Sane

Minimum Wage Referendum Gets Buried in 'Nays'

Some of our faith in humanity has been restored over the weekend,  as the Swiss referendum on whether to institute the world's highest minimum wage has been soundly defeated. The socialists and unions have been rebuffed, loud and clear, in  a veritable landslide.

According to the Telegraph:

“A move to set the world’s highest minimum wage has been overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum of Swiss voters. The call for an hourly minimum of 22 Swiss Francs (£14.66) was vetoed by 76 per cent of those who took part in the poll.

Trade unions had backed the move for the minimum wage as had the country’s Socialist and Green parties. But employers and the Swiss Government said it would have made the country uncompetitive and led to an increase in unemployment.

Had the move been backed in the referendum, Swiss workers would have enjoyed a minimum wage more than double the £6.31 in Britain and more than three times the $7.25 in the USA.

Trade union campaigners said the high minimum wage would have helped lower paid workerscope with the high cost of living in Switzerland. However, Johann Schneider-Ammann, the country’s economics minister, welcomed the result, saying the alternative would have meant job losses. “Work is the best antidote to poverty,” he said.

Meanwhile the Swiss employers organisation said that it was not seeking to defend low pay, but that wages should be “realistic and flexible”.
 This was the third time that Swiss voters had rejected moves to set a minimum wage in the country.”

As the last sentence shows, they keep trying. However, a 76% 'no' vote probably guarantees that some time will pass before they do so again.

By the way, it has been widely reported that the Swiss backed an unfortunate decision to set a 'maximum wage' for so-called 'fat cats' (as to why this idea is not defensible either, see here), but this is actually a misrepresentation. What the Swiss actually backed was this:

“Claude Longchamp of pollsters Gfs.Bern told Swiss state television early returns in a referendum showed 68 percent backed allowing shareholders to veto executive pay proposals and a ban on big rewards for new and departing managers.”

In other words, the Swiss voted in favor of strengthening the rights of shareholders, specifically their right to have a say on executive compensation. In other words, it was a decision in favor of strengthening property rights.

Here is what they subsequently rejected (this was barely reported in the media, strangely enough):

“Switzerland has rejected a proposal to limit the salary of CEO’s to 12 times that of their lowest-paid employees, following a massive campaign by big business who spent millions in advertising against the measure.

The measure was opposed by 65 percent of voters, the government of Bern said Sunday, claiming a voter turnout of 53 percent, the highest in the last three years. The proposal was rejected by a margin of around two to one. 

“It’s a big relief,” Valentin Vogt, president of the Swiss Employers’ Association, said in an interview on Swiss national television SRF. “It’s a signal that it’s not up to the state to have a say in pay.”

 The referendum on the so called “1:12” initiative came after Swiss voters approved the so-called fat-cat initiative in March that allocates the shareholders a binding vote on top managers’ salary and blocked extra compensation such as the severance pay. 

[…]

“Today we’ve lost,” Young Socialist party leader David Roth told SRF. “But we’ll continue to fight long term.” 

Because the Swiss so steadfastly reject the crazy ideas of socialists who want to use the State to coerce people into acting in a manner only the socialists approve of, the place actually looks like this:

Zürich

(Photo via therichest.com / Author unknown)

And not like this…

Soviet era apartment blocs in Tbilisi

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons / Author unknown)

…or this:

Soviet era buildings in Bucharest – the blessings of socialism in the form of crumbling concrete.

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons / Author unknown)

Res ipsa loquitur, as they say … and after asking aloud whether the Swiss had gone crazy, we are hereby expressing our relief that we are able to certify their continued sanity.