127 replies to this topic

[Haflinger]

Boston is expensive.
 
It's not London though. Everywhere in North America seems cheap to someone from the UK. Especially food.
 
At least the Americans have a minimum wage; Switzerland just rejected the idea of introducing one. Man.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

It would have been the highest minimum wage in the world at $25 an hour.  That has a lot to do with why they rejected it.  Anyway 90% of workers in Switzerland already make more than that.  Also most Swiss workers are protected by collective bargaining agreements.  Finally, while, there may be no national minimum wage, many of the individual cantons and municipalities have them.  The net result is that the minimum salary for an unskilled worker is the equivalent of about $15,500; this is the de facto Swiss minimum wage until/unless they enact one at a federal level.  That's about $7.75 an hour based on an American work schedule, but something tells me Swiss workers don't clock in at 40 hours a week.  I think 35 is the norm in most of Europe, which brings it to $8.50 an hour, still not great.  But that includes paid vacation time, universal health care, and probably other benefits that American minimum-wage workers could only dream about.  So all in all it's probably still better to be a low-wage worker in Switzerland than in America, even the states with the new $10.10 minimum wage.

[Redezra]

Again, Switzerland proves it's superiority through the ability to be responsible.

[Haflinger]

Switzerland is much more expensive than America to live in, due to the extremely high national income level.

 

The low-paid workers are mainly farm workers, and many of them are living below Switzerland's poverty line.

[Redezra]

But they have amazing social security in place, so who cares?

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Switzerland is much more expensive than America to live in, due to the extremely high national income level.

 

The low-paid workers are mainly farm workers, and many of them are living below Switzerland's poverty line.

 

I'm not saying they shouldn't be better paid.  But living below the poverty line in Switzerland is still a hell of a lot better than living below the poverty line in the United States.

[Haflinger]

But they have amazing social security in place, so who cares?

Not for migrant foreign workers. You should try and learn more about it.

[Redezra]

I know that. They are intentionally looking after their own people. They don't care about others.

 

Oh, also, their own people means "born in this country". As I'm sure you know, they don't allow migrants to become full citizens.

 

Switzerland is close to my favorite current government.

Edited by Redezra, 29 May 2014 - 12:27 AM.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Switzerland allows migrants to become full citizens, it's just not easy.

[Haflinger]

I think that we can agree that migrant foreign workers who are denied social benefits, work on farms, and live below the poverty line are not really people that are being targetted for becoming full citizens.

 

The term indentured servant comes to mind.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

No one made them go there.  And again, I'd wager that living conditions for those workers in Switzerland are still better than they are for comparable workers in the US.  Not to mention in their home countries (there's a reason they left).  Now, perhaps I am wrong.  Perhaps foreign workers are suffering horribly under Switzerland's oppressive system.  But somehow I doubt it.

[Haflinger]

No, the sweat shop workers in LA are probably in about the same position.

 

Migrant foreign workers are usually displaced people from third world countries.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

I am highly skeptical of that assertion.  Prove it.

[Redezra]

Yeah, I'm gonna say that it's not like that at all.

 

Especially because everyone goes off at Australia for our immigration scheme, and we give our immigrants free health care, food, water, shelter, etc, even through our horrible processing pipeline. If what you say is true, why isn't everyone even more pissed at Switzerland?

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

For that matter, why would anyone go there when there are a whole host of other European countries with much better immigration policies?  They must be at least roughly on par with their neighbors or everyone would go somewhere else.  It's a small country, there can't be that many jobs.

[Imperator]

I heard/read in a news article (so not necessarily 100% accurate) that for Europe, France has one of the easiest immigration schemes. Once you get Euro citizenship in one country, you're set to go anywhere else in the EU.

[Redezra]

Apart from Switzerland, cause "screw you we're Switzerland"

[Haflinger]

Especially because everyone goes off at Australia for our immigration scheme, and we give our immigrants free health care, food, water, shelter, etc, even through our horrible processing pipeline.

The reason people get upset at Australian immigration is not how you treat the (white) ones who you allow to stay in your country: it's the (Asian) people you ship off to refugee camps in other countries.

 

If what you say is true, why isn't everyone even more pissed at Switzerland?

In the whole scheme of things, Switzerland is a little country. Not that many people are there, period.

Also, you only think people talk about Australia a lot because you're from there, and are sensitive to it. In actual fact, people don't talk about you guys much.

[Redezra]

We ship everyone off to refugee camps. We don't have "illegal" white immigrants. We actually invite anyone with money, cause then by extension we have money. It's the perfect scam!

 

Still, I call bullshit on the Swiss thing.

[Imperator]

Haf, I have no delusions when it comes to Australia's unimportance in global news etc. I'm sort of glad for it, because it's never nice to be in the spotlight and hopefully people will look over us in some sort of apocalyptic nuclear conflict.