Contribution of the Swiss Communist Party

Dear Comrades,

The Swiss Communist Party warmly supports the joint declaration on the European elections. The Communist and Workers' Parties must be strengthened wherever possible, as a guarantee of the struggle of the workers' and people's movement against the European Union of capital, monopolies and war. Today we are also discussing "the situation of workers' rights in Europe and the experiences of Communist struggles".

The Swiss Communist Party is very interested in sharing experiences on this issue, which is of priority and even strategic importance. Our speech will be divided into three parts: 1. labour peace in Switzerland, 2. relations with the European Union, and 3. the crisis and renewal of trade unionism.

First of all, we need to introduce the specific historical characteristics of the Swiss labour movement. At present, labour peace is an established practice in the Swiss trade union movement. This situation dates back to 1937, when the industrial sector unions signed a labour peace agreement with the employers. Under this agreement, employers and unions agreed to renounce lockouts and strikes respectively, thereby forcing the parties to negotiate. Labour peace was to become more general over the following decades. Even if it was not included in all collective labour agreements, it transformed the signatory unions, which, on this essential basis, adopted a policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie.

In this context, the Swiss trade union movement was controlled by the bourgeoisie and reformism, thanks to collective agreements negotiated by pro-employer union leaderships, without any real worker participation. Indeed, after the Second World War, the Swiss bourgeoisie integrated social democracy and the collaborationist unions into the governance of the country, reducing working-class political opposition to a strict minimum.

In the second half of the 20th century, the economic situation was favourable to benefits for workers, while at the same time carefully destroying the independence and class consciousness of labour organisations. But today, the economic crisis of capitalism is also being felt in a country like Switzerland, despite its integration into the European Union market and its competition rules, even though it is not formally a member. According to official statistics, 8% of the Swiss population lives below the poverty line.

The collaborationist unions, which make up the vast majority of Swiss trade unions, have become tools at the service of capital for the bourgeois and reformist supervision of the working class and popular strata. Their ideological function is to reproduce labour peace and they benefit from a system of economic remuneration through collective agreements.

The Communist and Workers' Parties therefore have a primordial role to play in the reconstitution of the popular workers' movement and the development of the class struggle in each country. They must confront collaborationist trade unionism and reconstitute workers' sections with a class orientation.

Secondly, integration into the European market represents a new turning point for the Swiss trade union movement. The statistics give us an interesting insight into the unionisation rate and the coverage of collective labour agreements. Between 2005 and 2023, the number of active workers in Switzerland will have grown by an impressive 30%, which is not unrelated to the agreements on the free movement of persons with the European Union. At the same time, union density has not only stagnated, it has actually fallen, losing 15% of its membership over the same period, between 2005 and 2022. One of the ways the Swiss government has responded to this situation is to extend collective agreements on a obligatory basis. This had interesting financial consequences for the collaboration unions, given that the collective agreements include professional contributions deducted directly from wages.

From these statistics, we consider it relevant to mention two more indicators. 82% of workers are non-union members who are vulnerable to abuse by employers. And on the other hand, a very large mass of workers (around 40%), even though some may be in comfortable wage situations, benefit neither from a collective labour agreement nor from public sector conditions. Obviously, working conditions in the public sector and in collective agreements are also subject to employer attacks and a real deterioration. For example, we have noted that the phenomenon of on-call work is not only developing in new forms of work, but also in sectors covered by collective agreements, such as the hotel and catering industry, or in the parapublic sector.

Negotiations between Switzerland and the European Union are currently underway and also concern the situation of workers' rights. The collaboration unions, which are clearly pro-EU, are seeking to guarantee their own interests, to the detriment of workers' interests. Even though Switzerland is not part of the European Union, institutional debates are necessarily influenced by the anti-popular policies of the EU.

The Communist and Workers' Parties must therefore, as the joint declaration on the European elections points out, fight in particular for stable and permanent work, with full rights, and combat all forms of flexibilisation of work imposed by the anti-popular policies of the EU, such as on-call work.

Thirdly, as a response to the crisis of capitalist governance, the Swiss bourgeoisie is preparing the conditions for a new carrot-and-stick policy, meaning the promise of new illusions on the one hand and the strengthening of the repressive apparatus on the other. But as we have said, collaborationist unionism was in crisis. In these circumstances, the militants of the Swiss Communist Party have contributed in recent years to the emergence of new grassroots unions, particularly in French-speaking Switzerland, in both the private and public sectors, which really exist, which defend their members and mobilise in trade union actions.

This new situation is an opportunity to build working class organisations on the basis of authentic trade unionism, which defends the class interests of the workers, with the workers themselves. The political and practical training of activists, the ideological struggle and grassroots trade union work seem to us to be essential for rebuilding a class alternative. Strengthening class-based trade unionism is particularly important in order to reconstitute a strong, democratic, grassroots and independent workers' movement.

As well as defending workers' socio-economic rights, it is important to defend the conquests in trade union, civil and political rights. When it comes to building new trade unions, we have seen how important it is to raise the issue of trade union freedom, both through concrete action and by asserting that right. Trade union freedom implies the right of workers to choose their union, but also the collective right to take trade union action in companies and on the ground, to have militants and delegates who defend workers within companies. We must defend this conquest as a fundamental means of action in the fight against capitalist exploitation.

The Communist and Workers' Parties have an essential role to play in trade union work, for the regroupment of the working class, the concrete improvement of living conditions, respect for trade union freedom and the fight against capitalist exploitation. In this context, our party reiterates its determination to strengthen class-based trade unionism in Switzerland.