Construction workers stage regional protest over working conditions
Several hundred construction workers have staged a protest in the Swiss city of Basel to call for improvements to their working conditions.
The crowd gathered before lunchtime near the city’s main railway station on Tuesday, accusing the master buildings’ association of demanding radical changes to the national overtime contract.
The protest, the third in a series of demonstrations to demand a re-negotiation of the national construction industry wage agreement, was organised by the Unia and the Syna trade unions in north-western Switzerland.
The unions said more than 400 construction sites in the region were at a standstill.
Similar demonstrations took place in the Italian-speaking Ticino region and in Valais and more protests are planned in other regions of the country.
The current agreement, which covers about 80,000 workers expires a the end of the year and a further round of negotiations with employers is due to take place later this month.
The unions say the master builders make a wage increase dependent on accepting a number of measures, notably deteriorating classify long-serving construction workers in lower wage categories and shorten their notice periods.
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