Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

How To Explain The Swiss Vote Against The Free Movement Of Workers

Roland Erne 6th March 2014

Roland Erne

Roland Erne

On 8 February 2009, almost 60 percent of Swiss voters supported the extension of the bilateral EU-Switzerland agreement on the free movement of workers to workers from Romania and Bulgaria. This clear endorsement of the free movement of Romanian and Bulgarian workers in the Swiss labour market is noteworthy because the Swiss People Party (SVP) at the time conducted an overtly xenophobic campaign against it, depicting Romanian and Bulgarian workers as black ravens that were pecking on a map of Switzerland. Whereas xenophobic inclinations may be a recurrent feature of humanity, xenophobia can hardly explain the sudden shift of Swiss voters against the free movement of all EU workers in the referendum of 9 February 2014; notably after a referendum campaign in which the SVP – for once – avoided the use of xenophobic stereotypes on its major campaign poster.

However, I also doubt that the last Swiss vote in favour of migration controls can be attributed to downward wage pressures in Switzerland’s low income sectors, as suggested by the Austrian economist Schweighofer on these pages. The Swiss labour market is in part highly regulated which questions economic textbook explanations of the Swiss vote that are predicated on low-income workers’ apparently natural resistance against the free movement of workers. Whereas unregulated labour migration certainly entail negative side effects, as argued elsewhere regarding both sending (Stan and Erne 2013) and receiving countries (Erne 2008), Swiss voters have accepted the free movement of Romanian and Bulgarian workers in 2009, because Swiss trade unions successfully fought for improved measures that aimed at preventing any abusive undercutting of Swiss wage and employment conditions (Wyler 2012).

As during the earlier Swiss votes on the free movement of West European and Central and Eastern European workers in 2000 and 2005 respectively, trade unions, employer organisations, and government agreed improved ‘flanking measures’ in order to boost popular support for the opening of the Swiss labour marked to European migrant workers. Overall, the Swiss ‘flanking measures’ consist of acts and actions in the following three areas:

  1. A new Posted Workers Act that stipulates that workers transferred to Switzerland are subject to the wage and employment conditions which apply in Switzerland.
  2. A revised Act on the Extension of Collective Labour Agreements that facilitates the legal extension of collective agreements to all employers and employees operating in a given sector.
  3. Finally, the measures also included the setting up of tripartite commissions with extensive law enforcement powers composed of employer, union, and state representatives at the federal and cantonal levels in order to enforce the principle of equal wages for workers of different origins.

The flanking measures against the abusive undercutting of local wage and employment conditions were particularly effective in unionised low-wage sectors, where the measures facilitated the extension of collective wage agreements by law, such as in the construction and the hospitality industries. In order to enforce the equal pay principle for local and migrant workers in the construction industry, for example, tripartite commissions verified in 2010 the wages paid to 50% of all employees in the sector. By contrast, however, the measures were much less effective in other sectors of the economy – especially in services, retail, banking, but also research and development – given the lack of effective corporatist implementation mechanisms in these predominately non-unionised sectors.

We haven’t seen the results of any detailed analysis of Swiss voting behaviour yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the success of the Yes-vote could therefore be attributed to highly-paid employees who are holding relatively cosmopolitan attitudes and hitherto supported Switzerland’s opening to the EU, but aren’t working in sectors that are effectively protected by the flanking measures. As mentioned by Rechsteiner and colleagues, Swiss high earners’ fears of labour market competition from highly-skilled university graduates from Switzerland’s neighbouring countries, namely Germany, have played an important role in this year’s referendum campaign. This suggests, however, that interpretations of the Swiss vote along the common divide between (upper-class) cosmopolitansist and (working-class) nationalists – which is dominating much of the current debate on Euro-skepticism – may be misleading.

The defeat of the No-campaign may indeed be better explained by the limited sectorial scope of the flanking measures and a gradual erosion of the class-compromise that hitherto had been sustaining them. Consequently, neither the Liberals and Christian-Democrats nor the Social-Democrats and Greens campaigned wholeheartedly against the SVP proposal. On the one hand, employer organizations and the Liberal Party (FDP) prevented any further strengthening of the flanking measures and their extension to new policy areas. In a heated exchange with the leader of Social-Democratic Party (SP), the FDP president justified his party’s refusal, by mentioning that the point at which the regulatory costs of further ‘illiberal’ flanking measures for businesses exceed the benefits from the bilateral agreements with the EU had been reached (Müller 2014).

On the other hand, Social-Democratic requests for an extension of the flanking measures beyond the labour market may unintentionally also have played into the hands of the SVP. By demanding new flanking measures in new policy areas – for instance, in order to combat housing shortages and accelerated rent increases – the SP implicitly vindicated SVP propaganda that was linking all ills caused by a capitalist economy to the presence of migrant workers, as self-critically acknowledged by several promoters of an ‘open and social’ Switzerland after the vote (Capus 2014, Kreis 2014).

In sum, the very different outcomes of the Swiss votes on the free movement of EU workers over the past 10 years show that EU integration referenda first and foremost reflect the intricate socio-economic and political conjunctures in which the referendum debates took place. These conjunctures, however, cannot be captured if one simply applies the analytical models that are dominating present conventional wisdom, whether they originate from textbook economics or culturalist identity politics.

Bibliography

Capus, A. (2014) ‚Rede zur Demonstration für eine offene und demokratische Schweiz vom 1. März in Bern’ http://offen-und-solidarisch.ch/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Mediemappe.pdf

Erne, R. (2008) European Unions. Labor’s Quest for a Transnational Democracy, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100323970

Kreis, G (2014) ‚Die Luft wird dünn‘ Tageswoche 4 (7) 6-9, http://www.tageswoche.ch/de/2014_07/schweiz/639841/die-luft-wird-duenn.htm

Müller, P. (2014) Intervention during the party leaders’ debate. Swiss Television SFR 1, 9 February.

Stan, S. and R. Erne (2014) ‘Explaining Romanian labor migration: from development gaps to development trajectories’ Labor History, 55 (1) 21-46, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0023656X.2013.843841#.UxWvA3bKwjQ

Wyler, R. (2012) Schweizer Gewerkschaften und Europa. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.



Don't miss out on cutting-edge thinking.


Join tens of thousands of informed readers and stay ahead with our insightful content. It's free.



Roland Erne
Roland Erne

Roland Erne is professor of European integration and employment relations, and principal investigator of the European Research Council project ‘Labour Politics & the EU's New Economic Governance Regime‘, in the School of Business and the Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u42198346ae 124dc10ce3a0 0 When Ideology Trumps Economic InterestsDani Rodrik
u4219834676e9f0d82cb8a5 2 The Competitiveness Trap: Why Only Shared Prosperity Delivers Economic Strength—and Resilience Against the Far RightMarija Bartl
u4219834676 bcba 6b2b3e733ce2 1 The End of an Era: What’s Next After Globalisation?Apostolos Thomadakis
u4219834674a bf1a 0f45ab446295 0 Germany’s Subcontracting Ban in the Meat IndustryŞerife Erol, Anneliese Kärcher, Thorsten Schulten and Manfred Walser

Most Popular Articles

u4219834647f 0894ae7ca865 3 Europe’s Businesses Face a Quiet Takeover as US Investors CapitaliseTej Gonza and Timothée Duverger
u4219834674930082ba55 0 Portugal’s Political Earthquake: Centrist Grip Crumbles, Right AscendsEmanuel Ferreira
u421983467e58be8 81f2 4326 80f2 d452cfe9031e 1 “The Universities Are the Enemy”: Why Europe Must Act NowBartosz Rydliński
u42198346761805ea24 2 Trump’s ‘Golden Era’ Fades as European Allies Face Harsh New RealityFerenc Németh and Peter Kreko

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out!


It is time to take action and to forge a path towards a Socialist renewal.


European Socialists struggle to balance their responsibilities with the need to take bold positions and actions in the face of many major crises, while far-right political parties are increasingly gaining ground. Against this background, we offer European progressive forces food for thought on projecting themselves into the future.


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss the transformative power of European Social Democracy, examine the far right’s efforts to redesign education systems to serve its own political agenda and highlight the growing threat of anti-gender movements to LGBTIQ+ rights – among other pressing topics.

READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

With a comprehensive set of relevant indicators, presented in 85 graphs and tables, the 2025 Benchmarking Working Europe report examines how EU policies can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals to ensure long-term competitiveness. Considered a key reference, this publication is an invaluable resource for supporting European social dialogue.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
The evolution of working conditions in Europe

This episode of Eurofound Talks examines the evolving landscape of European working conditions, situated at the nexus of profound technological transformation.

Mary McCaughey speaks with Barbara Gerstenberger, Eurofound's Head of Unit for Working Life, who leverages insights from the 35-year history of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

BlueskyXWhatsApp