Yes, actually, but not at the rates they pay the cross-border workers.

Solution is to get jobs further away from the border where the cross-border workers don't want to work, and make twice as much.

Tom

Not true, they just want decent wages.

Tom

Tourism and restauration, entertainment, are in real trouble due to Covid. Half empty or worse. Do you think they need the extra cost?


As for industry, big, small and medium enterprises- when agreements fall due to the end of Free Movement, Switzerland will face tarifs for import and mainly exports, and breakdown of supply chains. Do you really think this will help raise wages? Talking to a friend who is the CEO of a major company - due to Covid, his production chains are working at 50% capacity, with no end in sight. The massive cost of wages and charges, the very strong Swiss franc - mean despite his excellent products, it is a constant battle to be able to export- and they export over 80% of production. He is just about breaking even, and that is with many frontaliers workers. He is not taking a salary. He should have retired, but keeps going to keep his workforce in employment. Any more problems, and he will just close down and move to Malaysia.


Hôtels and restaurants will close by the 1000s probably - due to Covid and slumping work economy. Luxury watch making is on its knees, and on, and on.

Based on this, we can guess what the government recommendation will be ( the government always publishes a recommendation as to which way to vote ). But will the people follow it ?

I agree . Of course it’s fine to exploit workers if the profits of bosses are at risk

I think that there should be more equality given between migrants coming from different nations and that Switzerland should be able to pick how many it wants sector by sector (it will broadly need a lot). A populist cry of no more foreigners is never going to become reality. Demographics stupid.

On the same hand, I think the attempt at EU nation building and "ever further integration", dragging Switzerland along with it to some extent, should ideally be prevented. For me the commission has become a body whose primary goal is the extension of its own power and I think it's frankly pretty dangerous and no longer a force for harmony in Europe. So in that respect I agree with the Euroskeptics. I would be pretty content with a pre-Maastricht/ pre-euro kind of EU if we could return to that..

On the other hand, I agree with the Europhiles that it's going to be very difficult and expensive to detach the country from the European system, but it will become more and more so offer time. Whether it's worth it already - I don't know. Up to the Swiss. I think I'd probably vote no. I've had enough disruption in recent years.

It'll be interesting to see the outcome of brexit,... this vote is basically the equivalent.

Come again?

It's difficult this time. If the vote is no, the government will take it as - not intended - go ahead to sign the "Rahmenvertrag", which is not a good step.

Also they started this idea of the "Übergangsrente" for 60 year olds who no longer can find a job. They even admitted they did that re the upcoming SVP-initiative-vote. Which is a very poor political move, the type I've only seen once before in Switzerland It's also a ridiculous idea (I don't know if it got through by now) as a) it confirms the problem of older people being pushed out of jobs due to the a wide offer of younger, cheaper EU members (they're not necessarily cheaper due to being EU but to being younger) and b) the preconditions to actually be able to receive this "Übergangsrente" are very restrictive (some details here in German) - it will probably go to many foreigners who did not have enough time before made redundant to pile up wealth. Which in itself is okay but misses the goal they claim to aim at. I don't know whom they try to fool with this but hope the voters looked right through it all already.

This SVP initiative is different and the government knows it. It is not the usual blabla against immigration (we will always have immigration here and those who found a job here so far still will as they didn't get it because they were EU but they were qualified at the time they applied. Schengen doesn't say we must take in a certain amount of EU members, no matter how useless they are ) but more a campaign to throw a stick between the legs of those who run in the direction of EU-membership.
So yes, this time it's not a no-brainer, there is a lot at stake.

__________________
be inventive!

Ahh, the gute Usländer exception. I've heard that a few times over he years.

A gute Usländer is a foreigner who comes from a wealthy culture and so has not necessarily emigrated for purely economic reasons. Even so, they tend to have better paid roles because they are skilled and/or educated, which in turn means that there's a shortage of them in the host nation, this pose less of an economic threat. And importantly, the cultural difference is 'manageable', typically Western, Christian and Caucasian - thus making integration easier and eliminating the danger, however unlikely, of demand in a few decades for the imposition alien cultural practices like Shira law.

Many who voted for the last initiative, did so because they thought it would principally stop unskilled, non-EU immigrants and because the idea of having absolutely no control on how many could immigrate understandably unnerved many (even if it's not a problem now, who feels comfortable with having no control in the future?).

That not all immigrants are the same or equal is one of the things you learn early on when you move to Switzerland.
It comes down to whether the EU survives and stabilizes politically in the long run - and by that I mean over the next 20 or 30 years. If not, and there's a good chance of that, it's a moot point. If the EU is still around and no longer lurching from one crisis to another, as it has in the last 15 years, then Switzerland will have little option than to either join or maintain nominal independence, while being little more than a protectorate.

https://www.tamedia.ch/tl_files/cont...2.Welle_FR.pdf

The "Noes" are slightly increasing.

The only toss-ups at the moment seem to be the hunting law (leaning towards no) and the childcare deductions (leaning towards yes).

Paternity leave and jet fighters seem in the bank.

The thing is, with the Swiss government basically on its knees in front of the EU (and I am still not quite sure which way the EU is facing... ahem.) it doesn't really matter what the outcome of the vote will be -- if it is aligned with the Swiss government's policy for the EU, they will implement it ASAP. If they don't like it, they will drag it on into the next century, twist it so it barely matches what was intended in the first place, and blame us plebes for not knowing what is best for the country; while of course they do know.


Regarding cheap workers, it seems that with the current trend of globalization, wages and standards of living are also being equalized, for some it goes up, for some it goes down. What does Switzerland have to offer to make it special enough that this would not happen here?
I am not yet sure how to answer this question, and it worries me. Ideas would be very welcome.

I think the campaign for cancelling the agreements have got their messaging wrong.

They could easily have sold this as a David vs Goliath story. Little Switzerland being bullied by the big EU. As the SVP has so often done in the past. They used to be masters at making their opponents embarrass themslelves by overreacting at posters. Remember the black sheep or the brown fingers going for the passports? Very clever images with multiple interpretations. If you think about them, they are much more harmless than your first gut reaction maybe says, just naughty. But those who want to see the evil will see the evil and will foam at the mouth and say something that is totally out of place and will come away looking like deranged chainsaw wielding psychos. Meaning all the fence sitters and undecideds will side with the SVP because nobody trusts overreacting psychos. You would have thought the opponents would have spotted the pattern at some point and developed a different counter-strategy, but they fell for it every time. Like clockwork.

I don't know why SVP didn't try that again in their campaign. Instead we are seeing posters of a hoard of individual people coming after "our" jobs, appartments, healthcare, nature etc.

That's not a very good tactic. It's easy to vilify institutions. But individuals are not a threat.

The SVP seems to be getting less effective at messaging. Also last year the referendum on assault weapons was supported by a quite weak and bonkers messaging.

Does the SVP/UDC really want that?
They were eerily silent during the implementation of the Masseneinwanderungsinitiative. Another success wouldn't be all that useful for the capitalists that dominate the party.

The SVP became big by pounding on the bad foriners while (ab)using them to the fullest. Especially farming would be impossible without the cheap foreign short-term employees (predominantly from EE). And if a success made qualified workers scarce they'd again need to support continuous education of the employees, rather than being able to import them on the cheap because the country of origin already paid for that.

I think what can act against the equalising effects of globalisation is network effects, getting advantage by bringing people together to work effectively. I think that's the power of Silicon Valley. It can mean getting people under a regulatory regime that enhances their creation rather than be red tape.

I agree with you, but I think there's an even simpler definition: "A gute Usländer is a foreigner I know personally and like."

I've literally been at dinner tables where relatives were dissing Ausländer whilst I was sat right there. Major cognitive dissonance.

A lot of us Auslander actually agree with the SVP on many topics......keep the taxes low, the farmers well fed and the Muslims out. We've seen the damage "liberal" politicians have done to our home countries and are quite happy with the life/culture here in CH and have no desire to change anything. If Blocher was smart he would be trying to find a way to get our votes to help offset the Swiss voters who disagree with him!

Muslims out? Why? They are no more etrangers than failed Christians. It is a faith, that the vast majority do not subscribe to terrorism, not any more than the continuing conflict between Christian sects.

And I don’t subscribe to any of those UDC principles.

And votes are reserved to Swiss nationals, for good reasons.

You're doing it all wrong Brian. You're meant to move to CH and reap all the benefits of living in a less multicultural/PC country and then virtue signal about how good all that "liberal" BS is*

*whilst not actually having to deal with it yourself, of course.

First of all you don't speak for a lot of foreigners... second Blocher is not dumb enough to suggest letting foreigners vote...