Text: Andreas Affolter; Photo: Urs Lindt
"Why are you giving her anything," my daughter asks me slightly reproachful. Although I have tried to look away, I know what she's talking in the entrance of the shopping center is a young mother with a stroller and stretches towards the passers-palm. "That's a gypsy," says my child impressed and gives her something Coin. On the escalator I realize what has irritated me: We are Swiss not to show used to how good or how bad we are. We are all middle class: show off not the rich man with his wealth, arms concealed his material misery And if anyone still even complain about money problems, it is said immediately: ". That should stop work times right"
Such mindless sayings take the Working poor especially. The term refers to people whose wages are not sufficient to defray the living expenses. The statisticians are based on households whose members meet at least 36 hours per week employment. So they are in Switzerland to 150 000 working poor. A (n) of them I want to meet to compose a portrait. So I ask for the authority both of whom the alarming studies: universities, charities, trade unions. Very strange: a contact I can give no one within a reasonable period.
One possible explanation is that statistics exaggerate - but I venture to the seriousness of the survey no doubt. The more likely explanation is that the working poor do not come out. Who is already on a voluntary basis, he slaves away for a measly salary? And most of all: Most of the victims in so-called precarious jobs are active - that is, they do not earn very little, but have no security of employment. Working poor have always expected that the employer waived its services when they become feisty and want a raise.
The unions are demanding minimum wages and regulations for use on-demand because it is precisely for low-wage sectors hardly give collective agreements. In the long term was not a solution, that the state working poor organizing supplementary benefits, so he indirectly subsidizing lousy-paying companies.
why my call, "working poor in all industries, unite! Open your situation carefully. Together, you have opportunities, your . Interests to enforce "That could be the cleaning lady cleaning the Institute, which is responsible for the cleanliness of the shopping center, the record company logo on their coats, how much - or how little - it earns. Perhaps my daughter would say: "Daddy is how they only make ends meet?" And plugging in their loose change. If employers respond equally sensitive, the target of the protest is reached - and this not only for the individual case.
More: print version "of the labor market" 11/2010
0 comments:
Post a Comment