Travailsuisse: without wage protection the EU package should be rejected

The president of Travailsuisse, Adrian Wüthrich, has said that rejecting the package of agreements with the European Union remains an option if the fourteen wage protection measures are not approved. The statement follows decisions by the Council of States committee for economic affairs and taxation.

The committee struck out two elements of the arrangement negotiated with the social partners. The first is national protection against dismissal for members of staff representative bodies, which in the committee's view can be left out of the package's implementation. The second is the tightening of joint liability of contracting companies for the working conditions applied by their subcontractors.

Wüthrich said he could not understand what the committee is proposing. The fourteen measures were drawn up precisely to answer union concerns about opening the labour market, and removing part of them means, for Travailsuisse, reopening the overall balance of the deal.

Two committees, two readings

The Council of States foreign policy committee, by contrast, supports the wage protection measures in their original form. Both readings will reach the chamber in the autumn session, which becomes the first occasion on which parliament must choose between the two approaches.

The Swiss Employers' Association had called for a lighter arrangement, arguing that extended liability for subcontractors raises administrative costs for firms that put work out to third parties. The point is particularly sensitive in construction, where subcontracting chains are long and where checks on minimum wages run into the difficulty of tracing work back to the client.

For Ticino the question is not theoretical. The canton has the highest share of workers posted from abroad relative to its working population, and cantonal joint committees have reported for years that violations cluster in subcontracting chains. An arrangement that lightened the contracting company's liability would have sharper effects here than elsewhere.