Voters in Geneva, Switzerland, have agreed to introduce a minimum wage in the canton that is the equivalent of $25 an hour — believed to be the highest in the world.
According to government data, 58% of voters in the canton were in favor of the initiative set the minimum wage at 23 Swiss francs an hour, which was backed by a coalition of labor unions and aimed at “fighting poverty, favoring social integration, and contributing to the respect of human dignity.”
While Switzerland has no national minimum wage law, Geneva is the fourth of 26 cantons to vote on the matter in recent years after Neuchâtel, Jura and Ticino.
“This new minimum wage will apply to about 6% of the canton’s workers as of November 1st,” Geneva State Counselor Mauro Poggia told CNN in a statement.
Communauté genevoise d’action syndicale, the umbrella organization of unions in Geneva, described the result as “a historic victory, which will directly benefit 30,000 workers, two-thirds of whom are women.”
The decision was also praised by Michel Charrat, president of the Groupement transfrontalier européen, an association of workers commuting between Geneva and nearby France..
Charrat told The Guardian that the coronavirus pandemic “has shown that a certain section of the Swiss population cannot live in Geneva,” and argued that the new minimum wage is “the minimum to not fall below the poverty line and find yourself in a very difficult situation.” Charrat didn’t return a CNN request for comment.
The Geneva Council of State, the local executive branch, said in an opinion against the measure that the new minimum wage would be “the highest in the world.”
A measure introduced by citizens
The Swiss system of direct democracy calls voters to exercise their right four times a year, and allows citizens to collect signatures to introduce “popular initiatives” to be enacted.
“On two occasions in the past, initiatives to set a mandatory minimum wage in Geneva had been submitted to the population and rejected,” said Poggia, who is in charge of the Department of Security, Labor and Health for the Geneva canton.
The two previous votes took place in 2011 and 2014, and in the latest case, it was a national referendum to introduce an hourly minimum wage of 22 Swiss Francs, which found 76% of voters were opposed.
“On 27 September, a new vote on this subject was finally accepted, for a salary of 23 Swiss Francs per hour, or slightly more than 4,000 Swiss Francs per month for an activity of 41 hours per week,” Poggia added. That’s roughly $4,347 per month.
While a $25 per hour minimum wage might look staggering from a US perspective, where the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, context is key.
