'Fat Cat' Backlash: Swiss Executive Pay Debate Gets Ugly

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/swiss-debate-about-1-12-executive-pay-cap-initiative-heats-up-a-935114.html



Switzerland votes this weekend on whether to limit executives' pay at twelve times that of their lowest-paid worker. In the run up to the referendum, the issue has become a national talking point, with both sides stoking public resentments and fears.

'Fat Cat' Backlash: Swiss Executive Pay Debate Gets Ugly
By Christian Teevs
November 22, 2013 – 04:57 PM

In Switzerland's current, polarized debate about executive salaries, Bern businesswoman Pia Tschannen could be considered a defector -- a woman in cahoots with the Young Socialists, the Social Democrats and the trade unions -- because she is campaigning for the 1:12 initiative, which is being put to referendum on Sunday.

The initiative's aim is to ensure managers cannot earn more in a month than a normal employee earns in a year. It would mean that nobody would be able to earn much more than 500,000 Swiss francs (€400,000) annually. "Ever higher salaries for managers imply that a company's success depends solely on one person. I don't believe that," says Tschannen.

In comparison, board members at Commerzbank, Germany's second biggest bank, were outraged at the government's insistence their pay be limited to €500,000 when the bank was bailed out with government money. Given Switzerland's historical association with Calvinism -- which is supportive of economic success -- the campaign has gathered surprisingly widespread support beyond the traditional left-wing. For a while, polls suggested advocates of the initiative were in a dead heat with their rivals, though support has now dropped.

The referendum campaign focuses on what the young Socialists call "the fat cats" -- extremely well-payed managers in the business world. These include Daniel Vasella, former head of pharmaceuticals giant Novartis, who was scheduled to receive an exit payment of 72 million Swiss franc (€58 million) in spring 2013. Despite having waived the money following the outcry, Vasella is still seen as an archetypal greedy manager and his notoriety has fed the popularity of the 1:12 campaign, which would have had no chance of succeeding just a few years ago.

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. Watching with fingers crossed. n/t