Swiss divided as 1:12 executive pay referendum nears

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Swiss divided as 1:12 executive pay referendum nears

John Hooper, southern Europe editor
The Guardian, Thursday 14 November 2013 15.52 GMT

To see just how far the revolt against fat cat pay has spread, you could do worse than visit a grey building a stone's throw from the open-air market and pavement cafes of the Bärenplatz in the medieval centre of Bern.

There, in the headquarters of Switzerland's Young Socialists (Juso), party workers are preparing for a referendum on 24 November that could see the Swiss vote to stop bosses earning more in a year than their worst-paid employees receive in a month.

The so-called 1:12 campaign is part of a broader drive for wealth redistribution by the Swiss left that has won wide popular support.

Long-standing rumblings about executive excess were fuelled by the banking crisis and the precarious position of the Swiss bank UBS. But the debate was supercharged this year when the Swiss drug group Novartis agreed to pay its outgoing chairman, Daniel Vasella, SFr72m (£49m). The payment, to persuade Vasella not to use his knowledge to help rival pharmaceuticals, was described as a "golden gag".

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/14/swiss-divide-1-12-executive-pay-referendum

[Common Sense Party]

1. I think the Guardian got this backward.

to stop bosses earning more in a year than their worst-paid employees receive in a month.

I believe it's to stop the bosses from earning more in a MONTH than low-wage employees earn in a whole YEAR. Big difference.

[Chuck Smythe]

2. I applaud this proposal

This will give the whole world a chance to see the real world effects of this idea. Corporations claim that they the have to offer ridiculous salaries to attract qualified people, but I bet that in the real world, 12 times the lowest pay will still attract a whole lot of qualified people. Good for the Swiss for doing this!