contents
Because of the war in Ukraine, prices are rising – for fuel, for example, but also for groceries such as bread and dairy products. Not least because of this, the Swiss trade union confederation is demanding that wages be increased.
Inflation of more than two percent is just as worrying for the unions as the expected sharp increase in health insurance premiums. And that will have a very direct impact on many workers, fears Daniel Lampart, chief economist at the Swiss Confederation of Trade Unions.
A family with two children is threatened with a loss of purchasing power of up to 3,000 francs a year. Lampart urgently needs to take countermeasures – especially when it comes to wages: “Now everyone needs a cost-of-living adjustment. Otherwise we have less money available. The other is that the economy is doing well. The business situation in almost all sectors is good to very good. And that means that there is now a real increase.”
There is a need to catch up among low-wage earners
This is all the more urgent, argues the trade unionist, because workers with low or middle incomes have only received modest wage increases in recent years.
Legend:
Vania Alleva, Vice President, Pierre-Yves Maillard, President, and Daniel Lampart, Chief Economist (from left) of the Swiss Trade Union Confederation SGB in front of the media.
key stone
A general real wage increase for all? Here comes resistance from the employer side. Simon Wey, the chief economist at the Swiss Employers’ Association, says: “There will not be this leeway across all sectors and companies.”
He cites internationally active companies as an example. “There’s competitive pressure, and companies can’t just raise prices.” According to Wey, that would mean that you would no longer be competitive. “And then the companies would have to see in their own operations how they can reduce costs.”
A hot wage autumn is imminent
And that could mean that jobs would be cut and more automated, which is not in the interests of the employees, according to the employers’ representative. The employers’ association can imagine that there is room for wage increases in the pharmaceutical or financial sectors, for example. In other sectors it will be difficult.
But employers and trade unions agree on one thing. Wage negotiations this year will be lively.