Posted on 11/19/2013 12:10:37 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Switzerland will vote on Sunday on whether to limit the salaries of top executives so they don't earn more in a month than the lowest paid workers earn in a year, a move that could mean big pay cuts for business leaders earning millions. The so-called 1:12 initiative for Fair Pay, the latest attempt to narrow a growing wage gap in one of the world's wealthiest nations, was brought about by the youth wing of the Social Democrats (JUSO), who gathered the 100,000 signatures needed to force a nationwide vote.
Despite its high standard of living, Switzerland is a generally egalitarian country, increasingly unhappy with rising wealth inequality as wages of executives balloon while those of low-skilled workers lag.
"After the Second World War the growth of salaries and wealth was more or less parallel,"JUSO President David Roth told Reuters. "In the last ten years one small part of society took the big profits and the majority ... had less in their pockets."
In 2010, the 10 percent of the workforce with the lowest salaries earned just under 4,000 Swiss francs ($4,400) per month, according to the Swiss Trade Unions Association. That suggests that top earners' wages would be capped at around 576,000 francs ($632,000) a year if the referendum passes.
That would imply savage cuts for some chief executives. The average compensation of CEOs at Swiss blue-chip companies was 6.7 million Swiss francs in 2012, according to accountants PwC.
Aside from its own banks and industrial giants, Switzerland is also home to high-paying trading houses attracted by favorable tax rates, in addition to the scenery and the agreeable lifestyle.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Switzerland's Proposed New Law To Link Executives' Pay With Their Lowest Paid Workers Could Lead To A Banking Exodus
Morons will soon find out that companies will be hesitant to hire anyone for low pay, opting for contract services to manage those tasks instead.
so they’ll get bigger bonuses. or’signing benefits. or retirement packages. govt has no business dictating what you or anyone else can earn.
Okay so the executive has no incentive to get more business will mean the lower paid workers will be out of a job. No business no work.
That is, if the Swiss are dumb enough to adopt this proposal. But the odds are against it.
Isn’t Switzerland also the county that issues traffic ticket fines based on income and how much you can afford to pay?
Or am I thinking of another socialist country?
There’s a reason some people earn more than others.
That was my thought. What is the definition of “worker?” If temps aren’t considered workers in the traditional sense, then I would get rid of everyone below executive, and just staff with temps. Problem solved.
I had a job once where my output was 17 times what some of my lower skilled peers’ (identical product). Why should I not get 15 times what they do? (I only got 2.5 times). That is unfair...to me.
Simple solution to continue attracting top executive talent in our global economy...move your company from Switzerland to another country.
Forced equality never works, but socialists will continue to push failed policies onto us.
I knew a salesman for Modcomp, a Miami company. The salesman was earning more in commissions than the president made in pay. So, the president fired him. You’ve never heard of Modcomp, right? That’s because when the salesman left he went to work for the competition and took all of their business with him. Some people are absolutely worth what they’re paid. You can get anybody to sweep the floors at night.
RE: Isn’t Switzerland also the county that issues traffic ticket fines based on income and how much you can afford to pay?
Not on Switzerland but also in other EU countries...
See here:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34792272/#.UovIItJDvfU
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EXCERPT:
European countries are increasingly pegging speeding fines to income as a way to punish wealthy scofflaws who would otherwise ignore tickets.
Advocates say a $290,000 speeding ticket slapped on a millionaire Ferrari driver in Switzerland was a fair and well-deserved example of the trend.
Germany, France, Austria and the Nordic countries also issue punishments based on a person’s wealth. In Germany the maximum fine can be as much as $16 million compared to only $1 million in Switzerland. Only Finland regularly hands out similarly hefty fine to speeding drivers, with the current record believed to be a $190,000 ticket in 2004.
The Swiss court appeared to set a world record when it levied the fine in November on a man identified in the Swiss media only as “Roland S.” Judges in the eastern canton of St. Gallen described him as a “traffic thug” in their verdict, which only recently came to light.
“As far as we’re concerned this is very good,” Sabine Jurisch, a road safety campaigner with the Swiss group Road Cross.
My my. It’s time to pass the popcorn for this story too. Switzerland has one of the highest costs of living in the world. The people live in very small flats, for the most part,that cost thousands of francs per month.
If the Swiss approve of this, most of them will lose their current standard of living, not improve it.
This is where American liberals are all going to to get away from all these laws. :D
I predict a massive wave of business leaving the country if this passes.
This is communism. Under the soviet union, a doctor made only a few times more than a ticket collector. So why study hard and go through all that a doctor must go through?
This country is heading in the same direction.
$4,400 a month are the low-paid workers?
Oh such harsh problems they have
Oregon has the same idea coming to a ballot measure. Poll results on Lars Larson show indicate Oregon is 33% communist.
Along with socialized medicine, this has been one of the top three or four “fairness” issues pushed by progressives.
I've personally seen this happen to small business four times in my career.
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