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Swiss reject world's highest minimum wage

AFP
AFP - [email protected]
Swiss reject world's highest minimum wage
Photo: AFP

Swiss voters on Sunday rejected a proposal to introduce the world's highest minimum wage, which would have guaranteed every worker in one of the world's priciest nations at least $25 an hour.

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A proposal to introduce a minimum wage so high it could pass for mid-management pay elsewhere, was rejected by 76,3 percent of Swiss voters.

The massive rejection of the "Decent Salary" initiative was widely seen as a slap in the face to its union backers, who insist at least 22 francs ($25) an hour, or 4,000 francs ($4,515, 3,280 euros) a month, is needed to get by in Switzerland.
   
If it had passed, Switzerland would have gone from having no national 
minimum wage to boasting the world's highest, far above the $7.25 in the United States and 9.43 euros in France.

But the initiative flopped as voters heeded warnings from government and other opponents that it would deal a death blow to many businesses and would weaken Switzerland's healthy economy.
   
Swiss Economy Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann hailed the result, saying 
the country had dodged a bullet.
   
Introducing the minimum wage, he told reporters, would have led to 
"layoffs" and made it "more difficult for people with few qualifications to find a job."
   
Farmers, small business owners and employer organizations also welcomed the 
results.
   
While disappointed, Alessandro Pelizzari of the Unia union's Geneva chapter 
insisted the campaign itself had had a very positive effect.
   
"We have never before seen in Switzerland so many companies raising 
employee salaries to 4,000 Swiss francs as over the past months," he told AFP, listing the Aldi and Lidle supermarket chains, as well as fashion giants H&M and Bata.
   
Supporters of the minimum wage said it would have boosted the purchasing 
power of some 330,000 people.

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