Swiss Association of Personnel in Public Services

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Swiss Association of Public Services Personnel ( VPOD , French Syndicat des services publics (SSP) ) is a Swiss trade union . It is affiliated with the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions (SGB) and organizes employees in the public service. The central secretariat is domiciled in Zurich . The VPOD union is based on grassroots democracy and is headed by the president Katharina Prelicz-Huber and the general secretary Stefan Giger.

structure

The VPOD is organized as an association. As a member union, the members determine politics and decisions at all levels of the association. The employees of the VPOD have no voting rights. The supreme body of the VPOD is the congress, which takes place every 4 years. The Congress elects the state board, the business and auditing commission, the association arbitration tribunal, the general secretary and the central secretaries.

The VPOD organizes the following industries:

  • vpod education, upbringing, science
  • vpod federal personnel
  • vpod management
  • vpod energy
  • vpod fire department
  • vpod health professions
  • vpod craft
  • vpod enforcement of justice
  • vpod aviation
  • vpod public transport
  • vpod NGO
  • vpod social professions
  • vpod maintenance and cleaning

The VPOD has two central secretariats in Zurich and Lausanne and is represented by regional secretariats in all cantons throughout Switzerland. The VPOD is a member of the International Federation of Transport Workers (ITF), the International Public Services (PSI), the Education International (BI) and the International Federation of Trade Unions (ITUC). He is a member of the Solidar Suisse aid organization. The VPOD publishes member newspapers in German (“VPOD Magazin”), French (“services publics”) and Italian (“I diritti del lavoro”).

history

The predecessor organizations of the VPOD go back to the 1890s, when community and state workers' associations were founded in various Swiss cities. In 1896 the first tram associations were established in Bern and Zurich. The founding date of the vpod is November 19, 1905, when the Association of Community and State Workers in Switzerland was founded in Zurich. The first president was Herman Greulich .

In 1908 a central secretariat was opened; at the same time - under the title "Plus haut - Aufwärts - In alto" the first association newspaper appeared. In 1920 it merged with the Swiss Tram Association, in 1924 the name was changed to the Swiss Association of Public Service Personnel vpod. In 1926 the association introduced unemployment insurance as a self-help organization. During the Second World War, the VPOD, under its then secretary Hans Oprecht, was heavily involved in helping the refugees.

A turning point was heralded in the 1970s with the first president Ria Schärer and Walter Renschler , who from 1974 led the association as managing secretary for twenty years. In 1975 the number of members rose to over 40,000; More and more women, employees in the rapidly growing health and social professions, came into the association. Their struggle for equal pay for equal work culminated in the women's strike in 1991 , which was largely the result of the initiative of the vpod.

In 1994 the VPOD received Doris Schüepp as its first general secretary; With the election of Christine Goll as President in 2003, he even had a pair of women until the current Secretary General Stefan Giger was elected in 2008. The presidium of the union remains in the hands of women: In March 2010 Katharina Prelicz-Huber was elected the 14th president in the history of the VPOD. At the Swiss-wide women's strike in 2019, the women of the VPOD were again among the most important organizers.

Membership numbers

The number of members increased markedly towards the end of the two world wars as well as at the beginning of the global economic crisis and stagnated at around 40,000 in the mid-1960s to mid-1990s, then decreased to below 35,000 and has increased again since 2008 (1906 1 '649; 1920 10'229; 1940 18'505; 1960 36'898; 1993 42'561; 2000 36'619; 2010 35'500).

Web links