[R-G] Switzerland: Construction workers strike

[ProletarianNews]

AFP (with additional material by AP). 4 November 2002. Switzerland's
construction workers start national strike.

GENEVA -- More than 15,000 of Switzerland's 100,000 construction workers
held a one-day strike Monday in the country's first big national
stoppage in more than half a century, two of the main industrial
workers' unions said.

"It looks like a big success," said Vasco Pedrina, president of the SIB
labor union.

The unions called the one-day strike claiming employers had gone back on
commitments to let construction workers take early retirement at age 60.

The unions, GBI/SIB and Syna, estimated the turnout in majority
German-speaking east of the country at about 4,000, with more people
taking part in the francophone western areas such as Geneva, where about
3,500 held a protest rally.

Eric Favre, the vice-president of Syna, told AFP, "It was a penalty
strike aimed at bringing the employers back to the negotiating table,"
Favre said.

Employers and unions had already arranged a meeting on Thursday before
the strike began.

Unions and employers agreed on a new collective contract for the
industry in March, but workers claim that the new terms, which override
the standard 65 year-old retirement age for men and 62 for women, had
not been respected.

Construction industry employers said a large majority of employers
accepted the principle of retirement at 60 but disagreed over the level
of pensions payments.

Employers have also warned they were prepared to take legal action over
the strike.

"The strike is surely a signal that times have become harder and that
you soon will no longer be able to talk of Switzerland's special case of
social harmony," Hansueli Scheidegger of GBI told the newspaper
SonntagsZeitung on Sunday.

The unions have warned of a further major stoppage in about two weeks'
time unless the issue is resolved.

Construction workers last went on strike in 1947 when in Zurich alone
about 12,000 workers took action.

Large-scale strikes are rare in Switzerland and limited by law. The
country has not seen a major labour dispute since the 1918 general
strike, in which 400,000 workers took part.

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ProletarianNews
http://www.utopia2000.org
with photo





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