CHAPTER 11.—_UNSUCCESSFUL OR INCONCLU-SIVE
 ATTEMPTS TO FIX MINIMUM WAGES
FOR HOME WORKERS
SWITZERLAND

N THE eastern cantons of Switzerland textile work is done
| largely in the homes of the workers, and various shortcomings
have led to Federal regulations as to wages and prices. Sweating
in the big cities led to popular agitation, investigations of home work,
and exhibitions of home-work products showing the public the low
earnings of the workers, mostly women. A provision for the establishment
 of wage boards was finally embodied in a general labor
law, passed by the Federal Parliament in 1919.
This law provided establishment of wage boards to fix minimum
wages. The Federal Council was empowered to declare collective
agreements affecting home work generally applicable; it was authorized
 also to extend by decree these minimum wages and collective
agreements to industry and commerce generally. The criticism directed
 against this last-named provision led to a referendum and to a
rejection of the act by the people, although only by a very small
majority.! Since that time the Federal authorities have been considering
 the possibility of submitting to Parliament a new law referring
 exclusively to home workers, but nothing, however, has
been done up to the present date. There are some difficulties. Home
work and factory work in various trades, particularly in the embroidery
 industry, are so interwoven that minimum wages for home
workers might be prejudiced by lower payment to factory workers
in the same trade. Application of minimum wages to factories,
however, seems to be excluded by the popular feeling as expressed
in the referendum referred to. Future advance of Swiss minimum
wage legislation seems to hinge on the proposed international convention
 which is favored by the Swiss Government.
Viewpoints on minimum wage legislation are divided, even among
sincere friends of the home workers. The Frauencentrale” of
Zurich in agreement with the Swiss Consumers’ League published
the results of an inquiry (1928) into the conditions of female home
workers in Zurich.? The misery of the workers is described and the
need for a minimum wage law expressly admitted, but the fear is
expressed that only the most skilled workers would keep their jobs
inder minimum wage and that the majority would lose their work.
This fear is similar to that expressed by Austrian home workers

1 International Labor Conference, eleventh session, Geneva, May, 1928. Report om
Minimum Wage-Fixing Machinery. Geneva, International Labor Office, 1928.
? Summed up in the Neue Ziiricher Zeitung, May 15, 1928.