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WORKING IN SWITZERLAND

Reader question: How can I find out if my Swiss employer is underpaying me?

Wages in Switzerland are generally higher than almost everywhere else in Europe. But how can you know if you are being paid enough — and what can you do if you are not?

Published: 12 January 2023 15:29 CET
Reader question: How can I find out if my Swiss employer is underpaying me?
There are ways to find out if your employer pays you fairly. Image by myshoun from Pixabay

Obviously, some jobs and industries pay more (or less) than others, so your salary will be based on a general pay scale for your specific position within that sector.

It is also determined by other factors, such as your education, skills, experience, length of employment, and the canton / city where you work.

For instance, if you work in Zurich, Geneva, or Basel, you are likely to earn more than someone employed in a similar job in a small town or rural area.

Based on all these variables, your pay may very well be lower — or higher — than that of other employees in your company or sector.

However, regardless of where in Switzerland you work, there are ways to find out whether you are being compensated sufficiently for the kind of work and position you have, or whether your salary is lower than normal for your industry (a practice known as “wage dumping”).

Swiss labour practices

While some employers have been accused of wage dumping, this is not a widespread practice in Switzerland, and is predominantly limited to small companies that subcontract work.

The country has strong labour laws which protect workers in terms of wages, work conditions, and other employment-related rights.

In addition to the basic rules and conditions outlined in this legislation, many employees are also covered by the collective bargaining agreement (CLA), a kind of contract that is negotiated between Switzerland’s trade unions and employers.

Generally speaking, they cover a minimum wage for each type of work; regulations relating to work hours; payment of wages in the event of illness or maternity; vacation and days off; and protection against dismissal.

CLAs are sector-specific; in other words, they take into account the particular aspects of each branch. As an example, Switzerland’s largest labour union, The Swiss Federation of Trade Unions (UNIA), maintains 265 collective agreements in the areas of industry and construction.

READ  MORE: What is a Swiss collective bargaining agreement — and how could it benefit you?

So if your company and employees are covered by a CLA, you can be sure that you are getting a fair wage — and that your other rights are protected as well.

What if your company has not concluded a CLA?

In this case, you are still protected by the above-mentioned labour legislation, which ensures that your welfare and rights are being respected.

You will also sign an employment contract with your company, which outlines your salary, rights and obligations, as well as everything your employer can and cannot do, or expect from you.

According to a government site, “in professional sectors that do not have a collective employment agreement, the federal or cantonal authorities can establish a standard employment contract …The employer can only modify these conditions to offer better terms for employees.”

Due diligence

If you want to know what a standard wage is for your type of job and industry you can do so by checking out the wage calculator created by UNIA. 

It is programmed with the latest salary levels from 72 different industry sectors and 36,000 companies in Switzerland, so it will give you a good indication of what a fair wage is in your case.

If the pay your employer is offering you is below the industry standard, you have the option of not accepting the job.

In case you are already working and realise your employer is short-changing you — especially based on your nationality, race, gender or disability — there are some options open to you, all of which are outlined on this government site. 

If a court or another official body decides the employer was paying you unfairly, the company will have to repay the wage difference.

READ MORE: How much do you need to earn in your Swiss canton to be well off?

 
 
 

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MARRIAGE

OPINION: Swiss childcare culture and country’s divorce laws mean women are losing out

The high costs of childcare in Switzerland, the culture for family-based care and recent Federal Court decisions made in the guise of equality all mean that women in Switzerland are at a disadvantage, Clare O’Dea writes.

Published: 20 March 2023 09:41 CET
OPINION: Swiss childcare culture and country's divorce laws mean women are losing out

We don’t think of marriage as an institution that negatively impacts a person’s earning power, but the law has long recognised this feature, taking into account years of unpaid care work and reduced earning capacity in the case of divorce. Now the approach is more cautious.

Previously, settlements between couples were quite traditional, reflecting the model of most families, where one spouse earned most of the family income and one spouse did most of the care and home-related work. 

But recent Swiss Federal Court judgements between 2020 and 2022 reflect a changed approach towards establishing individual financial independence. Now, in normal cases, the lesser-earning spouse is supposed to be able to support herself (mostly wives) fully as soon as possible after divorce.

The principle of financial independence being pushed through on the divorce side ignores the reality for most mothers, who for practical, economic and cultural reasons reduce their – present and future – earning capacity during marriage. Divorced women already had a much higher risk of experiencing poverty than divorced men before this change.

READ ALSO: How do the costs of childcare in Switzerland compare to elsewhere in Europe?

Childcare dynamics

So what’s keeping women in the home? The reluctance of Swiss parents to use external childcare is an interesting phenomenon. Could it be related to the history of poor children forcibly being taken into care or is it simply an expression of conservative values?

Grandparents Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of March in Switzerland. In my local newspaper, the occasion was marked with an article about a grandmother who looks after her two grandchildren up to four day per week. Both her daughters, mothers of the pre-school age children, said they would work less or not at all if they didn’t have this family care arrangement for their children.

The grandmother, who is only 57 years old, has a paid job one day per week. She said she would rather give up that job than miss out on looking after her grandchildren.

This strong preference for family-based care for children is part of the reason why most mothers reduce their working hours significantly after birth. Day care is seen by many parents as less than ideal, an option to be used in small doses to complement family-based or other privately-arranged care.

Added to that cultural barrier, and the short duration of statutory maternity leave (14 weeks), the cost of childcare in Switzerland, which is the second highest of OECD countries, is prohibitive. The net cost of a full-time place in a creche for one child is 26 percent of the average household income of a working couple in Switzerland, second only to New Zealand at 27 percent.

Most OECD members manage to provide childcare that costs less than 15 percent of a couple’s income. Ireland, the UK, New Zealand and Switzerland are the only four countries above the 20 percent mark.

Common problem

Traditional gender-based roles within marriage are alive and kicking in Switzerland. Economically, this is a disadvantage for women, at least on paper. But the disadvantage becomes concrete in the case of divorce. Because when the provider-carer deal is broken, the law is blind to that lack of economic equality.

Divorce is not a rare scenario. The divorce rate in Switzerland was 41.9 percent in 2021 and the average length of marriage at the time of divorce was 15.7 years. A lot can happen in 15.7 years, especially when they are potentially a person’s prime earning years.

The main thrust of the Federal Court decisions on divorce law is a narrowing of the conditions under which the lesser-earning spouse receives maintenance payments. A marriage is no longer automatically considered to be life-shaping (lebensprägend), and therefore creating a right to alimony, just because there are children involved.

The position now is that the spouse who looks after the children during the marriage should stand on their own two feet financially after the marriage ends. This overwhelmingly applies to mothers, most of whom work part-time.

But the change has happened without the necessary progress in the economic situation of women, and as a result, there is now a mismatch between the law and the reality for women.

Poverty trap

The reality is that motherhood in Switzerland usually means losing ground in the workplace, while fatherhood does not. Women generally do more unpaid work at home, whether they have a paid job or not. Most women work part-time and mothers often work in worse-paid jobs than they are qualified for as a result of their interrupted working life.

The net effect of all this is that women are at higher risk of poverty in old age, especially if the provider-carer deal they participate in for several years is shattered by divorce.

I’m all for encouraging women to regain their financial independence after divorce. But not in a way that the structural barriers are ignored.

There are signs of improvement in the area of childcare provision. Full-day schooling is becoming more common, with fewer children needing to return home in the middle of the day. Last September, voters in the city of Zurich approved a plan to offer supervision and a meal to children over the lunch break in all schools by 2025, for instance.

The National Council voted last month in favour of a 710-million-franc package intended to reduce childcare costs for families by 20 percent by 2025. The Council of States, usually more reluctant to spend, still has to vote on the package.

But it will take years for families to actually reap the benefit of these measures, which still only scratch the surface of the problem of economic inequality. In the meantime, women facing divorce need to know that they are on their own, and that neither the state, their ex-partner nor the law will necessarily help them in future. 

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