Greater protection needed for flexible workers

Jürg Krummenacher says there needs to be a balance between workers' and employers' rights Keystone Archive

The Swiss aid organisation, Caritas, is calling for new regulations to protect people working on a flexible basis.

Director Jürg Krummenacher says it is not a question of “demonising” employers but of ensuring employees do not lose out.

“The main intention should be to guarantee social security for everybody and there are a lot of measures which can be taken, such as insurance for all, insurance for accidents but also for illness which is not yet guaranteed in Switzerland,” Krummenacher told swissinfo.

“Then we would also like to see improvements in pensions because there are people on low wages who do not have sufficient pensions. We would also like to see a minimum wage established for those with poor qualifications.”

However Krummenacher insists his aim is to see a situation where new political conditions establish a balance between workers’ rights and those of their employers.

Shifting work patterns

According to Caritas, the need for change stems from the ever-increasing shift in working patterns away from full-time to part-time and flexible contracts. Today, more and more people work part-time, on short-term contracts and from home, it says.

The aid organisation itself employs 500 staff in Switzerland of whom 80 per cent work on a part-time basis.

Krummenacher’s comments came at a conference in Bern to discuss the issue of “flexibilisation”, which was attended by experts from across Europe.

Dr Fenneke Reysoo, from the Institute of Development Studies in Geneva, took up the theme arguing that flexible work patterns are clearly aimed at serving the interests of bosses.

Those suffering most from the low pay and lack of social security benefits that are the plight of the “flexible worker” are women, she says.

“Flexibilisation could allow for greater emancipation and a more equal and harmonious society,” explains Reysoo. “But it is an instrument of the employers, based on the free market economy and designed to boost profits.”

Danger of regulation

However Werner Hübscher, director of Worklink, an enterprise established by Swisscom, the employment agency Manpower and the unions, to find new jobs for hundreds of former Swisscom staff believes that now is not the time for change.

Since its inception more than a year ago, Worklink has managed to place around 200 former workers back in the jobs market via a policy of flexible and temporary work placements.

Hübscher argues this is only possible because of Switzerland’s existing free market conditions, and warns that any tinkering with the current system could make matters worse.

“We need some regulations – that’s clear,” says Hübscher. “But not more than we’ve got today. That would be an error because the German example demonstrates to us that too much regulation is the main reason for high unemployment.”

by Adam Beaumont