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Voters slash Lucerne city councillors’ pay

Executive city councillors in Lucerne have to make do with less after citizens approved an initiative to cap their annual pay at 200,000 francs ($203,000) in a vote that wrapped up on Sunday.

Published: 9 March 2015 21:10 CET

Voters slash Lucerne city councillors' pay

Lucerne Mayor Stefan Roth (third from left) with fellow councillors and city clerk. Photo: City of Lucerne

The still hefty wage compares with an average salary of 247,000 francs currently earned by the five city representatives.

Mayor Stefan Roth’s pay — currently around 264,000 francs — will be cut back to 220,000 francs under the initiative spearheaded by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and supported by 62.5 percent of voters, the Neue Luzerner Zeitung reported on Monday.

The pay cap still allows for an annual cost-of-living adjustment.

A counter-proposal that would have allowed higher pay was narrowly defeated.

Wages for councillors in Lucerne, a city of just 84,000 people, are at the upper end of what politicians in other Swiss cities are paid.

Indeed, it is roughly on par with what city councillors receive in Zurich, the country's largest metropolis, where voters 15 years ago backed a similar initiative to rein in cadillac salaries, the Neue Luzerner Zeitung said.

The Lucerne city council issued a statement expressing disappointment in the outcome of the initiative, dubbed “200,000 francs is enough”.

Council noted that its members had agreed to voluntarily take a 20,000 franc annual pay cut as a temporary economy measure this year.

It said that the large numbers of citizens in support of the measure were probably influenced by the financial situation of the city and by comparisons with their own wages, “especially in today’s economic situation”.

The council has recently announced “austerity measures” because of financial difficulties, including cutbacks in services, such as street cleaning.

It is not clear when the new pay order will go into effect but the SVP is pushing for implementation later this year.

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What's at stake in Switzerland's 'physical integrity' referendum?

Four issues in total will be brought to the ballot box on June 9th.

Among the most controversial topics are the two initiatives seeking to curb the cost of the obligatory health insurance — one by capping the premiums at 10 percent of income, and the other by providing a ‘brake’ on health costs, which should evolve according to the economy and wages.

READ ALSO: How Switzerland’s two crucial health insurance referendums could impact you

But there are two other proposals on the agenda as well.

One, titled “For the freedom of physical integrity” was launched by the STOP compulsory vaccination committee of a group called Swiss Freedom Movement.

While it may seem a bit outdated today, this citizen-driven initiative saw the light of day during the Covid pandemic, when the Federal Council had to take some drastic measures — including quarantine and confinement — to protect the population from the virus and prevent the healthcare system, especially hospitals, from being saturated.

This, along with the vaccines introduced at the end of 2020, prompted the group to start colecting enough signatures to challenge these measures in a referendum.

What exactly is it about?

The initiative demands “protection of the body” against interference by the state.

It specifies that the consent of the person concerned must be obtained for invasive procedures that may affect their “physical or mental integrity”, which basically means any medical interventions, like vaccinations, but in practice it goes much further (read more about this below).

The federal government, cantonal health authorities, and health experts in general, recommend that voters reject this proposal, for several reasons.

One is that physical and mental integrity are already protected under the Constitution, which guarantees the right to ‘self-determination’ in matters of health and life in general.

As for vaccinations, whether against the coronavirus or any other diseases, nobody can be forced to be immunised against their will in Switzerland.

Another argument against the initiative is that, if it is passes, it would hinder measures that the government would have to implement to protect the population in case of another pandemic.

But there would be non-medical consequences as well

Since the initiative doesn’t specifically refer to medical interventions but covers generally any actions by the federal government, cantons and communes that involve physical contact, it implies that police would no longer be able to arrest a suspect without his or her authorisation — as such actions would involve physical contact that could impact a person’s mental state.

According to the government, the initiative focuses on individual rights and ignores the overriding public interest.

The initiative therefore goes well beyond vaccination and other health matters, it said.

The fourth issue: electricity supply

Supplying Switzerland with sufficient energy has become a challenge due to International conflicts and the restructuring of the European power grid.

Therefore, a new law sets the ground for Switzerland to rapidly produce more electricity from renewable energy sources such as water, sun, wind, and biomass.

Opponents, however, say that the legislation will be detrimental to environmental causes like the protection of nature, and urge the ‘no’ vote.

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