

Switzerland votes on world's highest minimum wage ($25/hr) - dan_bk
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27459178

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lawl
Swiss here. I want to highlight two problems in the proposal:

> _They argue that surviving on less than 4,000 francs a month is not possible
> because rents, health insurance and food are all prohibitively expensive._

There are multiple problems with that. The first beeing that you _can_ survive
on less than 4000 francs a month. A few of my friends are doing it, and they
live _directly_ in the city of Zürich where flats and food is most expensive.
They aren't living like kings, but they can afford a small appartment and a
car. Seriously, that number is just too high. Okay, as a decent (senior) dev
you'll get 8000 per month, in Zürich. But as a dev, you'll have a pretty good
live in Switzerland in general, nevertheless, you can live on 3000 a month
directly in Zürich if you can live with a one room flat. If you're on minimum
wage you'll probably want to accept a 20 minute train ride and live a bit
outside the city and get a larger flat.

The second problem: If you're _outside_ of Zürich/Geneva/$expensiveCity, with
4k/month you can probably afford a 4-room flat and a decent car.

Seriously, the rent is the biggest issue here, you would have to set the
minimim wage depending on where in Switzerland you live (i.e. minimum wage per
canton, not for the whole country). If you're on minimum wage you probably
don't have a huge selection of offers _where_ you're going to work, or the
option to work remote, so you need work near your flat. So if you have to work
in Zürich on minimum wage, that would be just plain unfair.

Having said that, I'm not against minimum wage, I just think the proposal is
bullshit.

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dan_bk
My personal thought on this topic:

When you work at least 8 hrs/day, 5 days/week (because somebody wants your
product/service), you should be able to have a normal/decent life.

If not, you're simply being ripped off.

EDIT: In other words, western societies have more than enough wealth for
everybody to live really decent lives. If we still see horrible things like
homelessness, etc., it's because society accepts structures that result in
this. And personally, I don't want to be part of a society with such values.

~~~
ars
Where's the money coming from though?

Assuming no import/export (a false assumption of course) then increasing the
minimum wage just increases costs, and you end up exactly where you started.

There was a time when resources were a large percentage of the cost of good -
those days are long gone, today wages are the largest part.

You pay people more, so you have to charge people more, and they have more
money so they can afford it so prices are successful in going up. Net result:
Absolutely no change.

~~~
bjourne
You totally forgot about this thing called "profit." Higher wages requires
lower profits which is a good thing because it increases purchasing power. It
also incentivises companies to invest in new technology to reduce labour
costs.

E.g. Copenhagen has cool driverless subway trains. But the rest of the world
doesn't.

~~~
cperciva
_Copenhagen has cool driverless subway trains. But the rest of the world doesn
't._

There are quite a few cities with driverless trains now:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_driverless_trains](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_driverless_trains)

Vancouver's system is both the oldest (opened in 1985) and the largest (68.6
km) driverless train system in the world:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_\(Vancouver\))

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shirro
I believe in a fair living wage but high wages often just mean high cost of
living. Unless your purchasing power improves it is kind of pointless.
Australia's minimum wage is double the USA but everything costs twice as much.

~~~
abalone
Everything already costs twice as much in Switzerland.

Check it: [http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/compare_countries_resul...](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=Switzerland&country2=United+States)

~~~
tandembike
Yes, but they have more purchasing power and a higher quality of life index
([http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-
life/rankings_by_country.js...](http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-
life/rankings_by_country.jsp)).

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wiseignorant
If they voted in favor, most Swiss would probably have to be considered
morally inconsistent, because most of them will often cross the border with
Italy, Germany or France just to have a nice meal at a restaurant (in
Switzerland is already really expensive to the point of justifying the short
trip). So in this case they would basically be saying that it's not ok to be
paid less then 22 francs, but they are more than happy using a service where
people earn much less than that. "But probably they will leave a huge tip for
the staff in those countries". Well, I don't think so. In other words, as
always, "it's easy to love 'humanity', but too damn hard to love the
individual next to you", isn't it? Overall there is a lot of hypocrisy in
those that support minimum wage, as a lot of them will say: "everybody should
have a 'descent' wage", but then they are pretty happy buying cheap gadgets
made by low paid Chinese people and using the remaining cash at their disposal
for something else, maybe a nice trip for which they bought a low cost ticket,
which is cheap also because the baggage handler doesn't get paid 22 francs an
hour, not even that poor Ryanair stewardess earns that much money. But I'm
sure many supporters of minimum wage would be outraged if their London-Lisbon
return ticket cost more than £100. For more than that they would expect at
least the poor stewardess to blow them. Any top down attempt to build a "just
society" makes no sense. What is "just"? Even if you can define that, given
the complexity of our society, do you know what are the steps to be taken to
achieve your perfect world? Are you God or something, knowing all the
variables out there and how they interact? "Yes, almost. I have Big Data, AI,
super computers bla bla bla, and we live in a post scarcity society bla bla
bla". If it's like that I'm really sorry my Lord, you are right, my bad for
ever doubting on your powers and kindness, please rule over me and my fellow
humans. Anyway, some jobs would be pushed to the black market, leaving the
poorer, that you initially intended to protect, with less protection and
guarantees. And what about those that are low skilled, they won't be able to
gain access to the job market and to acquire the productivity and experience
that could justify being paid 22 francs an hour one day.

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ars
I kinda hope it passes - it'll be a very interesting experiment.

A disaster for Switzerland of course, but someone has to do the experiment.

The best case scenario is a massive increase in cost of living, more likely is
a huge increase in imports (since they are cheap now), together with a drop in
exports (since no one can make anything affordable). That's not a good
position for any country.

But, maybe I'm wrong, that's why I kinda hope they do the experiment.

~~~
tonfa
Given how the swiss usually vote this has no chance to pass. And FYI lots of
countries are doing this "experiment" with decent minimal wages,Switzerland is
more in exception among western countries than the norm.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_coun...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country)

~~~
tonfa
And as a sidenote, while some European countries do not have a national
minimum salary, most workers are covered by collective bargaining agreement
(minimum wage per occupation/sector).

This is the case in Switzerland, for example if you work in restaurant the
minimum salaries are fixed, with a starting salary of 3600CHF/month if you
don't have any diploma
([http://www.gastrosuisse.ch/dbFile/282084/Salaires_minima__CC...](http://www.gastrosuisse.ch/dbFile/282084/Salaires_minima__CCNT_2014.pdf)).

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mkuhn
So, first trends indicate that it will be rejected with 70 percent no votes.

One reason that has been handed around to explain the no votes is that people
do not want more regulation and think that this minimum wage would hurt more
than it would help. Also: A large portion of people (90%+) already earn more
than this minimum wage.

[Update 13:42 CET] It now looks like it is going to be rejected with 77% of
the vote. Quite a statement.

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Kenji
The vote doesn't make sense. If the Swiss people vote yes, the constitution
will be updated with a law that the minimum wage per hour is 22 Swiss Francs.
This is meaningless, considering that the constitution should be designed to
hold for centuries. What are 22 Swiss francs in 100 years?

~~~
jellicle
A constitution is a set of documents that defines how a country runs at its
most basic level. Not only should it not be designed to "hold for centuries",
it should be easily adaptable to meet the needs of current inhabitants of the
country. The decisions of people who lived hundreds of years ago have no power
to bind people who live today.

If your country is not making changes to its constitution on a regular,
ongoing basis (every few years at most), it is certain that the constitution
is not meeting the needs of most of the public.

~~~
Kenji
"A constitution is a set of documents that defines how a country runs at its
most basic level."

I don't consider exact values in a currency the most basic level. This law is
way too specific to make it into the constitution. Especially since it
disregards geographic differences in income which are quite large (consider
Zurich vs a tiny village somewhere)

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Zarkonnen
Seeing this thread made me remember to vote - with half an hour to spare.
Thanks HN!

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marincounty
I don't know about a $25.00/hr wage, but one of the many brilliant things
Switzerland does is ties fees/fines to income. So, if you are a rich man and
get a speeding ticket, it will pay substantially more. I think they tie
fees/fines to all aspects of working/living in Switzerland? A poor person who
gets a $800 speeding ticket could become homeless. A rich person getting a
expensive ticket is like getting decaf at Starbucks. People, will counter
saying oh the rich pay more in income taxes. Yes-- in many cases, but I still
feel fines/fees should be tied to a persons annual income. I feel it is so
important it should be an admendment. I had a friend in college who dropped
out after getting a $500 red light ticket. He wouldn't admit the ticket played
a part in him dropping out, but I think it was a factor. I will always
remember how he felt when that ticket arrived in the mail, while just
finishing top ramen. He was a poor kid from an ethnic family. He was maxed out
on loans and grants, and just always on the edge. Oh well, I hope you are
doing well Max.

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TallGuyShort
I agree. People who tie this to income tax are viewing fines as revenue
generators, which is wrong and harmful in so many ways. You're viewing fines
as artificial incentives to obey the law. That view is more correct, IMHO, and
your idea seems like a good way to apply the incentive evenly regardless of
economic status.

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ojii
For those interested in the results (and trends):
[http://www.wahlen.zh.ch/abstimmungen/2014_05_18/viewer.php?t...](http://www.wahlen.zh.ch/abstimmungen/2014_05_18/viewer.php?table=hochrechnung)
(in German, but Google Translate does a decent job).

TLDR, it's getting crushed, as expected.

~~~
us0r
Is this an official government site or some polling/news site?

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Dewie
This seems like a silly title. Switzerland is already an expensive country to
live in, so the minimum wage has to be pretty high compared to other places.

