Switzerland's largest trade-union umbrella organisation, the Schweizerischer Gewerkschaftsbund (SGB), has called for a general 2.5% wage increase, arguing that real pay has lagged behind productivity for a decade and that mounting inflation and health-insurance premiums have triggered a purchasing-power crisis.
SGB President Pierre-Yves Maillard announced the demand at a press conference on Thursday, saying higher wages were necessary both to defend living standards and because the economy had improved. "We are facing a purchasing-power crisis," Maillard said, noting that more families were unable to save money amid accumulated price increases and steadily rising health-insurance premiums. "Wages are ultimately not just a union and economic issue, but a societal one."
David Gallusser, SGB economist and central secretary, said real wages had fallen behind productivity for years. Had average pay kept pace, it would today be nearly CHF 500 a month higher, he calculated.
Gallusser flagged the high share of workers in the low-wage bracket — below CHF 5,000, or even CHF 4,500 per month — as particularly alarming. The problem extended beyond new entrants to include older workers and those with completed vocational training. With the average adult health-insurance premium at CHF 560 a month, more than half of employees earned too little to cover it, he noted.
Breaking down the 2.5% ask, Gallusser said 0.6 percentage points were needed to offset inflation, 0.3 points to cushion rising insurance premiums, 1 percentage point to reflect higher worker productivity, and the remainder to address catch-up needs accumulated over the past decade as well as to lift wages below CHF 4,500.
Vania Alleva, SGB vice-president and president of the Unia union, said every third monthly wage in Switzerland fell below CHF 5,000, and among women the figure was 40%. Workers with a completed apprenticeship should earn at least CHF 5,000 a month, she said. In many sectors real pay remained at 2016 levels or lower, particularly in hospitality, healthcare, parts of industry, construction and retail.
Alleva confirmed the SGB would push the demands into ongoing collective-bargaining and framework agreements. Matthias Hartwich, president of the transport workers' union SEV, called a 2–3% wage increase appropriate, though he said no single centralized demand applied across all transport companies. "The staff contribute significantly to efficiency gains," he said. "These demands are not an expression of greed but rather a catch-up need."
