
Swiss women strike for more money, time and respect - stojano
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48615911
======
kartan
I see just two comments right now and I see a lot of cynism.

Things are better today than in the past thanks to people fighting for their
and others rights. And the job is not finished.

Democracy is not something that happens once each four years. It's important
to vote, but as important is to express your dissatisfaction with the
wrongdoings of the system.

> Ms Born, who joined a newsroom staffed entirely by men in 1986, is quietly
> optimistic. "We've achieved some good things since 1991," she points out.
> "We have maternity leave now."

Parental leave seams such a natural right to have that it's strange that there
exists any opposition to it. Mothers and fathers benefit from it. Fighting for
women's rights is also figthing for a more just and balance society for
everyone.

~~~
kstenerud
> Parental leave seams such a natural right to have that it's strange that
> there exists any opposition to it.

There's opposition to it for a number of reasons:

1\. Employers are people, and peoples first reactions to anything is almost
universally selfish: "how does this negatively affect me? And why should I
suffer financially for someone else's gain?"

2\. Most policy makers are still men, and policy makers only decide policy
based on their own experiences. If they haven't suffered from lack of
maternity leave, they won't prioritize it as an issue.

Protest is a means of shaking the sleeping masses and getting your message
into the public consciousness. That's how you make change happen when nobody
in power is motivated to change. Once you build enough momentum, they have to
change.

~~~
wizzairflyer
During the maternity leave it is not the employer that is paying the salary of
the mother (at least in Switzerland, and I assume it is the same in most if
not all countries with a mandatory maternity leave), but the state. So the
employer isn't paying someone to do nothing.

He also has enough time to plan the replacement since the leave can be
announce 6 months or so in advance.

~~~
_nalply
Maternity leave is covered by deductions from salary for everybody. It's a
part of the Income Compensation Insurance, the rate of IC is 0.225% of the
salary. It is deducted from the agreed-upon salary and additionally the
employer pays an additional 0.225%, so in the total 0.45% is deducted.

[https://www.bsv.admin.ch/bsv/en/home/social-insurance/eo-
msv...](https://www.bsv.admin.ch/bsv/en/home/social-insurance/eo-msv.html)

[https://www.ahv-iv.ch/en/Leaflets-
forms/Leaflets/Contributio...](https://www.ahv-iv.ch/en/Leaflets-
forms/Leaflets/Contributions-OASI-DI-IC)

There are other mandatory insurance deductions. Let's say the employer and the
employee agree upon a wage of CHF 7500 a month, then first the employer
deducts premiums of 5.125% or CHF 384 and also adds CHF 384 on his own and
sends the money to the compensation office where the employer is located.

From my own experience as an employer I know that the compensation offices are
very strict and know how levy the monies even from small mom-and-pop shops
with employees. They are also helpful, as an employer you can call them or
visit them and do what is neccessary. It's an efficient and tightly organized
system.

------
Funes-
>women [...] are under-represented in management positions

They are hugely under-represented in blue-collar jobs, as well. And over-
represented in the health sciences, many fields of academia, and social work.
Would all that be unfair to men?

~~~
ketsa
Women are under represented in construction. Women are under represented in
waste management. Women are under represented in front line duties. ...

------
ketsa
What a pleasure this morning, lot of places in public transportation, fluid
traffic, people arrive at work with a smile, then we can work on an
exceptionally zen atmosphere.

They can repeat this operation as often as they please.

------
mlang23
Absolute equality is not realistic. People are not equal, individuals are
different from eachother. And I say that as someone belonging to a minority
group. However, I am convinced that equality can not be forced. Differences
are what make us interesting. And yes, there are differences between the
sexes, no matter how you twist and/or turn it. Trying to ignore those is
unrealistic and a fair bit naive.

~~~
ketsa
Exactly. Blondes are paid more than the rest of women. Tall people are paid
more.... Any criteria you select can lead to differences in outcomes.

------
chrisco255
This article is international politics and is off topic. Doesn't even
reference tech companies.

------
smackay
Context is always important. Switzerland still has conscription in to the
military and the culture that comes with it is very strong and male dominated
- though it's importance has lessened somewhat.

Switzerland is a modern country and many have the same liberal values we all
know but there appears to be a sizeable proportion which regard women for
their, shall we say, utilitarian value and little else.

Given this backdrop, this strike shows that while there has been progress
there is still a long way to go. Comparisons with the situation in other
countries is a little unfair.

~~~
wizzairflyer
I live here and I really don't see a strong and male dominated culture, no
more than when I was abroad in countries without conscription.

It's especially not the case in jobs requiring a degree, because degree
holders are way more likely to have opted out and done either the civil
service or pretended they were unfit and pay an extra tax instead.

However I guess it can slow things down from a different angle because
currently the only gender currently legally oppressed is men, since the law
guarantee the same rights to all but forces men into the conscription. This
can breed some resentment, especially since progressives regularly fail to
address it properly.

------
s9w
> Swiss women's pensions are 37% lower than men's, primarily because women
> take time out from work to raise their children

~~~
kstenerud
And in a world where you can't both live off the man's income anymore, that's
completely unfair.

Forcing people to trade their future income and security to raise kids is
terrible.

~~~
BigJono
How do you fix it? Any way you look at it, the person spending 12 hours a day
every day sharpening their skills is going to have a much higher income on
average than the person that spends their time raising kids.

~~~
kstenerud
Same as any quality of life improvement program: You tax people and use the
money to make things better for society.

~~~
lazylizard
Why do i have to help pay for your choice to have kids? I dont like kids. I
like fish. Will you help pay for my aquarium?

~~~
kstenerud
Because that's how it works to be part of a society. You sacrifice some of
your work to raise the quality of life of everyone.

Roads, parks, power lines, communications cables, police, welfare, healthcare,
sewage, electricity, clean water, healthy food, safe consumer products, clean
environment, justice, protection for the vulnerable, duck wetlands, women's
shelters, protection of creative works... These all cost money, and you pay
for them with your taxes. Not everything goes equally to everyone, and not
everything benefits everyone (by necessity), but the aggregate benefit is
huge.

------
colechristensen
What does "done" look like?

I am not at all that anything is, but I am saying in many cases we are closer
to the finish line than the starting line. (If we come to think of it there
are things which have been completed to the extent that many people don't even
know they existed)

In some cases the good fight for equality has transferred into something
besides good or equal.

When do you start thinking about how to cross the finish line and what should
you do?

------
ugqtq
"stage", well said.

>However, women in Switzerland still earn on average 20% less than men, they
are under-represented in management positions, and childcare remains not only
expensive, but in short supply.

Women are less valuable? How will a strike solve this? I mean if this was true
and I was a business owner I would only hire women because I could pay 20 %
less. But of course that's not the way it works. Those "facts" are
manipulative.

~~~
DecayingOrganic
I believe the research in question does not speak on the grounds such as to
suggest women earn 20% less for the same job vis-a-vis men, but rather claims
due to women are being under-represented in a variety of high-level jobs, on
average, they earn less.

And the reason may not be in the realm of misogynist inclinations depicted at
high levels of government, it may be the case on average women choose
professions that pay less.

We know that men are more likely to go into “nerdy” professions such as math
or engineering, whereas women are more likely to go into the caring
professions and to spend more time looking after children [0].

0: Geary (2010); Halpern (2012); Maccoby and Jacklin (1974)

~~~
ugqtq
Do men and women have the same level of education and have they chosen the
same career paths in average? If they haven't then that 20 % is meaningless.
As far as I know men and women can choose to get the degrees that they want
and can choose to pursue the careers that they want. If they haven't chosen to
do so what do they expect?

Ah I see you edited. Yes that was exactly my point. If they expect to get the
same money for nursing that you can get for designing rockets then that's
basically Communism.

~~~
nickik
More woman at my school in switzerland had the education to go into IT and yet
we had 3-4 woman in 3 classes. That has zero to do with access to education
and everything with personal choice.

One can argue its a society problem, but its not an education problem. Woman
are overrepresented and get more education in general.

~~~
mlang23
I experienced pretty much the same thing during the time I went to school. I
specialized in IT during school already. We had about 2/3 women and 1/3 man.
AFAIK, none of the women actually started to work in IT. Two or three man did.

