Social policy (Switzerland)

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The article is largely theoretical .

In Switzerland, as in other countries, social policy is the name given to measures to improve the economic and social situation, especially of disadvantaged groups in society. The main bodies responsible for social policy are the state , along with companies , trade unions , NGOs and the churches .

Goals of Swiss social policy

The aim of social policy is to increase general prosperity and to enable as many people as possible to participate in prosperity. To a lesser extent, social policy aims to guarantee people security against the vicissitudes of life. This is about social security , namely about guaranteeing a “decent” standard of living for all people in every life situation, especially when extraordinary events such as illness, accident, unemployment etc. occur . In technical terminology, these extraordinary events are called social risks .

Securing bare survival is no longer a priority. It is about something additional: social security should enable a “decent” standard of living when social risks arise. This type of subsistence level is called the social subsistence level. The standard of living in a rich country is taken as a measure of social security.

In addition to guaranteeing social security, social policy strives to increase general prosperity. In the Swiss Federal Constitution , this is described in the purpose article of the constitution (Art. 2 BV). The constitution becomes a little more concrete in Art. 41 BV with the new social goals that were added to the constitution in 1998, but which are not enforceable. So social security is the main objective, but not the sole objective of social policy.

Typology of the Swiss welfare state

The term social policy is vague (similar to the term poverty ). In teaching, different types of welfare state are distinguished: on the one hand the social insurance state according to Bismarck , on the other hand the supply state according to Beveridge . In practice, these types do not exist in their pure form.

Switzerland can be classified in the existing welfare state typologies as a social insurance state in the political center. In this mixed system, the principle dominates, according to which the insured with their contributions essentially raise the funds for risk compensation themselves. Legal claims guarantee the receipt of benefits without having to prove the need. The welfare jumps only when gaps in the network of social security: It acts on a subsidiary basis.

The Swiss social security system, with its strong emphasis on personal responsibility and various incentive systems, takes this aspect into account relatively well (in social health insurance, for example, the contributions made by the insured are nowhere as high as in Switzerland: deductibles, deductibles, no reimbursement of dental costs , low reimbursement of care costs, etc. - see health insurance in Switzerland ). The personal responsibility is clearly expressed in the strongly pronounced obligation to contribute (unit premiums). In the principle of subsidiarity, personal responsibility is also given great importance (for example, a few years ago an OECD study clearly showed that although social assistance benefits are relatively high in Switzerland, there are also higher barriers to access than in other countries - the obligation to reimburse benefits received from gainful employment, duty to support relatives, etc.).

History of the Swiss welfare state

Condition during the early industrialization

The emergence of the welfare state was the answer to the so-called "social question". The former professor for social legislation at the University of Bern Edwin Schweingruber means with the social question "[the] starting point for every socio-political consideration and activity". For him, one must "see this social question, [otherwise] [one] will not come to an understanding of social policy".

In the 19th century, the resident population increased from 1.6 million in 1798 to around three million by the end of the century. This also increased the number of wage earners. As a result of this increase, more and more people lived in need and misery despite work. This development increased more and more to mass poverty, which towards the middle of the century mainly affected the rural population and the first factory workers. It was particularly difficult for the latter: 15 hours of work a day, mostly without vacation, and wages that barely reached the subsistence level. That was also the reason why there were real "working class families" where all generations worked in the factory. In 1877, a teacher in Appenzell Ausserrhoder described the everyday life of school-age children to a national council commission as follows: “Schoolchildren [had to] go to school from 8 am to 11:30 am and also work 16 to 18 hours in the finishing department ... from 4 am to 4 am 7 ½ and from 1 a.m. to 2 or 3 a.m., so that these children didn't even go home to bed on summer nights, but instead looked for a bit of sleep in the open air. "

It is not surprising that similarly miserable conditions were found in the housing situation of the workers. Typical workers' apartments were often used by several people, making them cramped and unhygienic. The risk of infection with diseases was increased and alcoholism was widespread. There is even evidence that there were households that housed migrant workers in order to improve incomes.

These conditions, which can certainly be described as inhuman, became even more devastating, for example when someone in the family lost their job and thus their income. Entire working-class families had to face the struggle for survival due to a lack of dismissal protection and notice periods, protection against accidents and illness or in old age.

Beginnings of the labor protection laws

In the 19th century, labor protection legislation was the responsibility of the cantons. Their first laws were different and often only contained protection for children so that compulsory schooling could even be implemented. For example, regulations on a minimum age for child labor as well as bans on night work and working time restrictions were among the first protective laws. Women were likewise protected. Before the complete revision of the Federal Constitution, nine cantons had their own labor protection laws, all of which focused on child labor. Only three of them - including Glarus with the most developed labor protection law - also restricted the working hours of adults. These large differences between the cantons and the failure of concordat talks meant that the federal government was given authority over factory worker protection in the new federal constitution in 1874.

Three years after the introduction of the new constitution, Parliament introduced the well-known Federal Factory Workers Protection Act. It was based on the Occupational Safety and Health Act in the canton of Glarus and contained the limitation of working hours to eleven hours per day or the introduction of the 65-hour week, the ban on child labor and the establishment of three federal factory inspectorates.

Art. 11. The duration of the regular work of a day must not exceed 11 hours, on the eve of Sundays and public holidays not more than 10 hours and must be between 6 am and in the summer months of June, July and August 5 in the morning and 8 in the evening.

Art. 13. Night work, d. H. work between 8 o'clock in the evening and 6 o'clock or 5 o'clock in the morning (Art. 11) is only permitted in exceptional cases and the workers can only be used with their consent.

Art. 16. Children who have not yet reached the age of fourteen [sic!] May not be used to work in factories.

In a referendum, the law was just passed (181,000 against 171,000 votes). In a minor revision, the “Saturday Labor Law”, work was restricted to 5 p.m.

First World War 1914–1918

The next major revision should have brought a new factory law on June 18, 1914. It stipulated a 59-hour week and limited work to ten hours a day. However, the entry into force was postponed despite publication in the Federal Gazette because the First World War broke out at the same time . In 1911, the Federal Law on Compulsory Health and Accident Insurance - KUVG for short - was passed after it was established in the Federal Constitution in 1890. This law also came into force on April 1, 1918 after the war.

It can be said that the First World War was not particularly troubling compared to the neighboring countries of Switzerland. In terms of social policy, the development to solve the "social question" stopped for a moment. The plight of the population, which arose from the outbreak of war and brought about an increase in the price of food and loss of wages due to mobilization, was mainly taken over by the state and non-profit organizations.

The OAK called for a strike

Interwar period

Towards the end of the First World War, the concerns of the population increased: Around a sixth of the population received less than the subsistence level in 1918, while at the same time inflation doubled prices. The introduction of the federal war tax in 1915 increased displeasure against the Federal Council. At the same time, the congresses of the international socialists were held in Switzerland, who followed the revolutionary endeavors in Russia. The driving force in Switzerland at that time was the Olten Action Committee , or OAK for short, which saw itself as the management staff of the Swiss workforce and called for socio-political reforms. At the beginning of November 1918, the OAK called the workers to a national strike. In a leaflet they demanded, among other things:

• State political reforms: new election of the National Council under proportional representation, women’s right to vote
• Social policy reforms: introduction of compulsory work, limitation of weekly working hours to 48 hours, introduction of old-age and survivors' insurance

Demonstrators on Paradeplatz in Zurich

The first strikes on November 9th were quiet, but the Zurich workers decided to continue the strike on November 10th. However, this led to violent clashes between the demonstrating workers and the military. The following day, the factories, railways and public administrations were occupied by around 400,000 demonstrators.

After three workers had been shot in Grenchen, the OAK was forced to call off the strike on the night of November 15th. In the days that followed, those primarily responsible for the strike were sentenced to various prison terms in public trials. It can be said that from the perspective of the revolutionary wing, the strike was a defeat. Despite the defeat, however, the political demands of the Social Democrats were carried into politics: the National Council elections in 1919 were held for the first time under proportional representation (the Social Democrats doubled their number of seats to 20 percent), and in the following legislature more than a dozen laws and legislative changes were passed, all of which concerned labor law and social affairs.

Second World War - introduction of AHV

After the First World War, the Social Democrats put a number of referendums to a vote. They were all rejected by the bourgeois-conservative bloc in parliament and rejected by the people and the cantons. This included the initiative launched in 1925 to create old-age and survivors' insurance (AHV for short). Opposite it was a counter-proposal from the Federal Council, which wanted to commission the creation of an AHV. In 1931, however, the bill was rejected again.

On June 25, 1940, a few days after the army was mobilized, the President of the Federal Council, Pilet-Golaz , uttered the following words: "Le travail, le Conseil fédéral en fournira au peuple Suisse, coûte que coûte." He promised the Swiss citizens that he would create work, no matter what the cost. This radio address ushered in the time when social policy reforms quickly came about: In addition to income compensation for the conscripts and unemployment insurance, decrees were also passed to prepare for an AHV. In 1943 the Social Democrats won 56 seats in the National Council elections, making them the strongest parliamentary group. With the election of the Social Democrat Ernst Nobs to the Federal Council , the party struggles between the bourgeois bloc and the socialists became a thing of the past. On July 6, 1947, the federal law on the creation of old-age and survivors' insurance was adopted with a massive majority.

Company social policy after 1945

The “peace agreement” signed by Swiss trade unions and employers in the summer of 1937 to avoid strikes and measures, as well as the AHV, ushered in a period of relative industrial peace that lasted until the 1960s. The absence of strikes or the unwillingness of the unions to organize them, however, meant that conflicts over work organization and wages shifted to the interior of the company. Dismissals and frequent changes of company became an individual substitute for union representation. In order to “motivate” employees to develop manpower reserves and contain conflicts in the company, extensive measures of company social policy were introduced in the 1940s. These included, for example, welfare funds in the event of old age and illness (as a forerunner of the AHV even before 1947) as well as canteens and “welfare houses” with offers such as sewing courses. Company social policy was flanked by innovations such as the company suggestion scheme and effective advertising measures to identify with the company, both management techniques from the USA. In addition, however, concepts from the Nazi armaments industry were used to rationalize production processes and in piecework. It was this unpopular intensification of work processes that triggered layoffs and fluctuation - which was to be compensated for by company social policy.

Present / Perspectives

Despite the obvious expansion of social security, poverty and hardship have not disappeared in rich Switzerland either - as in the other modern industrialized countries. The doubling of social assistance expenditures in the last decade of the 20th century is a clear indication of the deterioration in the social situation of many people. Science speaks of a poverty rate in Switzerland at the beginning of the 21st century of 5–10% of the population: The most important cause of impoverishment is unemployment (unemployment or inability to work). Almost 30% of unemployed people can be described as poor. Divorced women (with or without children) and single parents are similarly affected (20% of the whole group). Having a large number of children (three or more children) increases the risk of poverty more than average (poverty rate of around 15%). If only the size of the household is considered, then - disregarding marital status - single men are at 16% more at risk of poverty than single women with just under 12%.

For a relatively small, but growing part of the population, the well-developed system of social insurance does not (any longer) offer adequate social security either now or in the near future. The pension systems ( occupational pension , accident insurance - see SUVA ) and partly also the national insurance systems (AHV / IV) are mostly linked to the so-called pension history. Social security is only guaranteed to those who have paid into the respective system with their contributions from the earned income . People without a regular income or with insufficient income ( working poor ) and people with interruptions in their income biography (often women) are increasingly limited in their ability to provide for provision.

Overview of the federal laws (BG) of the individual social insurances (legal basis)

• Old-age, survivors' and disability benefits
  • BG on old-age and survivors' insurance of December 20, 1946 (AHVG)
  • BG on disability insurance of 19 July 1959 (IVG)
  • BG on supplementary benefits to old-age, survivors' and disability insurance of March 19, 1965 (ELG)
  • BG on occupational old-age, survivors' and disability benefits of June 25, 1982 (BVG)
  • BG on freedom of movement in occupational old-age, survivors' and disability benefits of December 17, 1993 (FZG)
• Health insurance
  • BG on health insurance of March 18, 1994 (KVG)
• Accident insurance
  • BG on the accident insurance of March 20, 1981 (UVG)
• Military insurance and compensation scheme
  • BG on military insurance of June 19, 1992 (MVG)
  • BG on the income compensation regulations for service providers in the army, community service and civil defense of 25 September 1952 (EOG)
• Family protection
  • BG on family allowances in agriculture of June 20, 1952 (FLG)
• unemployment insurance
  • BG on Compulsory Unemployment Insurance and Insolvency Compensation from June 25, 1982 (AVIG)

See also

• Social policy , health care Switzerland , health care , health policy ; Welfare state , subsidiarity , welfare state # Comparative analysis of social policies

swell

• Andreas Fasel: Integrate and separate. Company social policy in Switzerland from 1937 to the 1960s. In: Work - Movement - History . Issue I / 2018, pp. 76–91.
• Silvano Moeckli : Understanding the Swiss welfare state (= compact knowledge series CH. Volume 17). Rüegger Verlag, Zurich / Chur 2012.
• Div. Authors: History of Switzerland - and the Swiss. Volume 2 and 3, 1982/1983.
• Willi Gautschi : The state strike in 1918. 1968.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andreas Fasel: Integrate and separate. Company social policy in Switzerland from 1937 to the 1960s. In: Work - Movement - History . Issue I / 2018, pp. 76–91.