Geneva's bankers face worrisome future in a shifting world
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The strong Swiss franc is back in the news 18-19 October, first with Swiss unions saying that they want the euro/Swiss franc exchange rate cap moved to CHF1.40, then the federal government announcing it will extend the period for reimbursement for partial unemployment and finally, the Geneva Financial Centre saying Swiss bankers may welll need to shift their expertise from private to institutional banking as they face a gloomy economic situation.
Bank profits will fall in 2011
Members of the Geneva Financial Center emphasized, speaking at their annual presentation for the media Wednesday, that a number of factors come together to create a worrisome scenario for the future. World markets are struggling, sovereign debt remains a major problem for a number of industrialized countries and the Swiss franc remains grossly overvalued. Profits at most banks will fall in 2011 as a result and belt-tightening will be in order, said Bernard Droux, president.
Partial unemployment due to franc: help for firms extended to 18 months
The Federal Council agreed Wednesday to extend from 12 to 18 months the period covered for companies to be reimbursed if they opt for partial unemployment as a solution in the face of the strong franc hurting their business.
The new measure becomes effective 1 January 2012.
Minimum wage should protect workers, say unions
Unia President Reno Ambrosetti Tuesday called for the Swiss franc to be capped at CHF1.40 rather than 1.20 against the euro, saying that 10,000 jobs are at stake. The major unions are calling for a minimum wage as fears grow that cheap labour will be imported at the expense of Swiss-based workers.
Zurich says no to both proposals to limit assisted suicide
Update 13:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – First Swiss 15 May voting results are in:
- Geneva accepting a re-zoning project for Plan-les-Ouates and Confignon, but a bicycle and pedestrian paths system looking like it is headed for defeat
- Vaud voting to support families in need, in particular those reaching the end of long-term unemployment claims.
- Zurich voters gave little support to either of the two proposals to limit assisted suicide (TSR, Fr).
a Zurich voters are famously having their say about suicide tourism 15 May, UK media in particular report, but inside Switzerland the hot issues include rezoning for a new housing area in Geneva, and nuclear waste and a minimum wage in canton Vaud.
Geneva: green transport support, re-zoning for new building
Geneva debates giving cyclists more space
The 15 May votes do not include any federal-level popular referendums. The Swiss go to the polls three to four times a year and the next federal voting session is in October, when members of parliament are elected.
Geneva voters, with the entire canton now eligible to vote online, have five items on the ballot. The one that has prompted the liveliest French-language media coverage is a zoning change in Plan-les-Ouates and Confignon, in the areas known as Les Cherpines and Les Charrotons. The re-zoning would permit agricultural land to be re-zoned for offices and homes, with the possibility of creating 3,000 homes near l’Aire, to the west of the A1 autoroute. The government is backing the plan, but opponents argue, among other things, that in order to eat local food as a feature of supporing the environment, you have to have land to grow it.
Geneva is also voting on a popular initiative to create pedestrian and cycling paths that would have priority, but the cantonal government says it is opposed to the plan, citing the fact that only 6 percent of those using “transport” systems are on bicycles and that the plan goes against a Geneva constitutional article that does not allow one form of transport to be given priority over others.
Vaud: nuclear waste, minimum wages
Vaud citizens are being asked to decide on a popular referendum that would create a minimum wage; Switzerland in general does not have minimum wages except for certain categories of workers, such as household staff, where they were established to avoid abuse. Unions and employer organizations generally negotiate wages that set a minimum.
Vaud is also one of several cantons that had planned votes on nuclear power stations, but in the wake of the early 2011 federal government moratorium on building nuclear plants, the ballot item was dropped. In its place is part of the larger ballot issue: voters are being asked to approve Swiss plans to bury nuclear waste deep underground. The cantonal vote is not binding on the federal government.
This weekend also sees the final round of voting to elect local officials.
Neuchatel, Valais, Zurich
Neuchatel: There are no cantonal voting items but the communes of Boudry, Cortaillod and Bevaix are voting on whether or not to join together.
Valais is not voting this weekend.
Zurich: Voters are being given two popular referendums on assisted suicide, one to end it and the other to limit it to Zurich residents when carried out in the canton, but neither is expected by most observers to pass. The importance of the vote lies in the message it will send to the federal government, which is expected to propose stricter legislation, possibly in 2011, and to canton Vaud, where a vote will probably be held in 2012 on allowing assisted suicide in homes for the elderly.
British media have covered the Zurich vote as part of ongoing coverage of suicide tourism, focusing on people going from the UK to Switzerland to die at one of the two main Zurich area clinics, Dignitas and Exit. Numbers are unconfirmed by vary widely, from 100 mentioned by the Telegraph to 800 on a waiting list mentioned by the Guardian.
Ed. note: one BBC story, and as a result other UK media stories, mistakenly reported that Switzerland is voting on the issue this weekend: only canton Zurich is voting on it (BBC’s Imogene Foulkes got it right).
Polls have shown a majority of Swiss in favour of ending suicide tourism, while safeguarding free choice about ending one’s life, for Swiss citizens.
Geneva exempt: has its own minimum wage
First Swiss minimum wage: domestic workers
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss domestic workers will have a minimum wage starting 1 January, the Swiss Federal Council said 20 October.
The new federal ordinance is in effect until 31 December 2013 and is largely designed to protect the domestic workers who have flocked to Switzerland, since 2007, from low-wage countries that are part of the enlarged European Union. Technically, the new ordinance makes domestic workers part of a CTT, or “type travail” contract.
Switzerland has had no minimum wage in the past and this is the first time one has been mandated because the law allows minimum wages to be set only under exceptional circumstances: repeated salary abuse in a sector, with workers regularly paid less than the professional salary for that industry.
The federal government undertook a study in 2008, recently completed, and it consulted with the cantons, who have also studied wages for domestic workers.
It concluded that domestic worker salary abuse is widespread and routine. The new ordinance calls for a minimum wage of CHF18.50 an hour for workers with no experience, CHF20 for those with five years experience but no professional training and CHF22 for those with Swiss-approved professional training.
Swiss wages up
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Collective labour agreements for companies with 1,500 employees or more will see an increase in real wages of 0.7 percent for 2010, a lower hike than in the past five years.
Of the total, 0.3 percent is to be awarded collectively and 0.4 percent individually.
Minimum wages for the companies will also rise by 0.7 percent. The negotiations involved nearly one million workers.
Domestic workers are not mopping up, when it comes to decent wages
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s household help is likely to be covered by a minimum wage contract, thanks to the Schengen Accord on the free movement of people in Europe. A committee reviewing the situation of various cross-border workers is recommending that Switzerland adopt a typical household worker contract with minimum wage, for anyone working at least five hours a week for the same employer. Babysitters, minors and family members or partners would be excluded from the coverage.
