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At WAK, the introduction of a cantonal-level minimum wage had been controversial, the commission announced on Friday. The WAK agreed to a minimum wage of 21 francs an hour, thus following the government’s proposal.
Unlike the Basel government, the WAK does not want to link the minimum wage to the Basel consumer price index in its counterproposal, but to a mixed index that corresponds to the average wage and price index. This leads to a slightly faster pay increase and therefore benefits employees, he said.
Generally binding collective and normal employment contracts that already contain minimum wages should be excluded from the cantonal minimum wage. The cantonal minimum wage should also not apply to six-month internships. Furthermore, internships should only be able to be extended without minimum wage if a signed apprenticeship contract is available after six months and, according to the WAK proposal, “a longer internship is required both in the context of specific training courses of the industry as in the tertiary sector ”.
Report adopted unanimously
Also, employees should not receive a minimum wage in the canton of the city if they do not work more than 70 hours for a company per calendar year. The minimum wage should also not apply to nautical employees. WAK fears that a minimum wage in this sector could lead to a migration of jobs to other countries with significantly less worker protection.
The WAK counterproposal is a balanced compromise, which would have had to make concessions everywhere, it says in the communication. The Commission approved the report unanimously.
The popular initiative “No salaries below 23 francs” was presented in March 2019 with 3,973 signatures. Behind the initiative is the Basel Cantonal Minimum Wage Association. This includes the Basel Trade Union Federation, the Unia, VPOD, Syndicom and SEV unions, as well as SP, Basta !, Greens, Juso, the Young Green Alliance and the communist youth.
The initiative was launched in September 2018. Since then, the parliaments of the cantons of Thurgau, Freiburg, Zurich and Lucerne have spoken out against the minimum wage. The corresponding approaches were clearly rejected.
Geneva with a minimum wage of 23 francs
The Federal Supreme Court determined that cantonal minimum wages were consistent with federal law in 2017. Neuchâtel was the first canton to enact a minimum wage law. This was set at CHF 20 per hour. The people of the canton of Jura also adopted an initiative “for living wages”.
In 2015, Ticino voters accepted a popular initiative according to which a minimum wage could be introduced in individual sectors. However, implementation is blocked by appeals from various Ticino companies to the federal court.
In the canton of Geneva, employees in all sectors will earn at least 23 francs an hour in the future after the electorate only accepted the union’s minimum wage initiative in September with 58.1 percent votes in favor .
At the national level, the union federation’s minimum wage initiative was rejected at the polls in May 2014. In Basel-Stadt, the number of votes against was 62.32 percent at the time.
