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Ice cream strike leaves employers sweating

Workers at Spain's ice cream factories are downing tools on Friday as negotiations heat up with the industry's employer body.

Published: 5 July 2013 11:50 CEST

Ice cream strike leaves employers sweating

Deep freeze: employees in Spain's ice cream factories want industry owners to prepare a "coherent" new collective agreement. File photo: Javier Rapoport/Flickr

Tensions between staff on the factory floor and the Spanish Association of Ice Cream Makers (AEFH) have been sticky for some time now.

Since June 28th, workers in a sector which counts among its members have been on a go-slow, switching off machines for two hours a day.

Now though, employees in an industry which directly affects from 2,000 to 3,500 jobs are ratcheting up the pressure on their employers.

A 24-hour strike is set for Friday, or just when much of Spain is experiencing its first real heatwave of the summer.

With 95 percent of staff having supported previous strikes, participation is expected to be high, Spanish general union CCOO said in a statement.

The row between workers and the AEFH comes because of a stalemate over a new collective employment agreement for the sector.

The previous deal reached its expiry date at the end of 2010 and a new draft landed on the table in 2011 but talks have been in deep freeze since then.

If a new deal isn't struck soon, the bargaining process could come to a halt after new Spanish laws put a timeline on negotiations for new industry workplace agreements.

Workers in the sector are now threatening an indefinite strike if demands aren't met.

Unions including the CCOO and the General Workers Union, or UGT, initially forged a plan with the AEFH which would have kept the current workplace agreement in place until the end of this year.

But the CCOO said industry owners had treated that plan with "contempt".

"We are open to dialogue but not in exchange for making returning workers to the stone age," the union said in a statement.

"If they want to avoid this strike, they need to prepare a reasonable and coherent proposal".

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Swiss salaries: How much do people earn in Switzerland?

Workers in Zurich, here in the city's business district, are among the highest earners in Switzerland. Photo by AFP

Swiss wages published by the Federal Statistical Office (OFS) shed light on some interesting facts, including on how much foreign workers earn compared to their Swiss counterparts.

According to FSO’s Swiss Earnings Structure Survey of 2018, the last year for which official statistics are available, the median monthly wage in Switzerland is 6,538 francs.

The salaries have not dramatically changed since then.

The study shows that the lowest-paid 10 percent of employees earned less than 4,302 francs per month, while the highest-paid 10 percent earned nearly 11,700 a month.

Gender-based wage disparities

Not surprisingly, the survey shows wage disparities between men and women across all professions, levels of education, age groups, and private and public sectors.

On average, women earn 11.5 percent less than men working in the same positions, though the gap has steadily decreased in the past decade.

Another disparity: Swiss versus foreign workers

FSO figures also show the divergence in wages between the Swiss and foreigners with different work permits.

As the chart below indicates, while a Swiss man earns 7,500 francs a month, a Swiss woman is paid just over 6,000 for the same job.

EXPLAINED: How much do foreign workers in Switzerland earn?

Now let’s look at the foreign workforce.

A man with a short-term L permit earns about 5,000 francs, while a woman holding the same permit will make a little over 4,000.

The pay is a bit higher for B permit holders: 5,700 francs for men and 5,000 for women.

Cross-border men workers with the G permit earn roughly the same as C permit holders — about 6,200 a month. The women in those groups, however, don’t have the same salaries: about 5,800 for border workers and 5,000 for permanent residents.

This could be because the former category has the skills specifically needed by Switzerland’s labour market.

So what are the average Swiss salaries for various professions?

First, keep in mind that wages vary from one canton to another. Generally speaking, people earn more in Geneva and Zurich than in Ticino, but the cost of living in these regions is correspondingly higher or lower.

READ MORE: Geneva voters approve ‘world’s highest’ minimum wage

Typically, professionals like doctors, lawyers, or engineers, as well as people working in information technology, the pharmaceutical industry, and bank and insurance sectors have the highest salaries.

On the other hand, unskilled workers are ones who are lowest paid, often referred to as ‘working poor’.

Lohncomputer, a platform for European citizens who want to or already work in Switzerland, lists median monthly wage estimates culled from various salary surveys.

Here are just a few examples:

Lawyer: 9,300 francs
Accountant: 8,125 francs
Teacher: 7,292 francs
Bank employee: 6,750
Architect: 6,250 francs
Nurse : 5,667 francs
Carpenter: 5,150 francs
Hairdresser: 4,375 francs

Other salary estimates can be found here.

If you’d like to find the expected average wage in your industry, check this link.

How does Swiss income compare with wages in other European countries?

With a median salary exceeding 96,000 francs annually, Switzerland’s workers have highest wages in Europe, according to a survey by an international consultancy firm Willis Towers Watson.

The second-highest is Denmark, with just over 63,000, followed by Norway (almost 60,000).

Out of 18 countries surveyed, Portuguese and Greek workers fared the worst, with average yearly salaries of 22,630 and 25,132, respectively.

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