Switzerland

Co-Ops Lead By Putting Communities In Charge Of New Housing Projects

June 14, 2017 Anca Voinea, www.thenews.coop Create! Cooperatives, Housing, New Economy, Switzerland

By Anca Voinea for Coop News - Co-operatives, community land trusts and other housing models are coming together to help communities design their own homes and neighbourhoods. The new concept – known as a platform for social production of habitat (SPH) – means locals are involved in projects, so they meet their own specifications rather than those set by the private market. Based in Switzerland, the project began when a group of community-led housing practitioners met to discuss the formation of a global network to increase visibility of the model and support local efforts through peer exchange, workshops, solidarity finance and campaigns, and a regional awards program linked to the World Habitat Award. The partners are the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF), Co-operative Housing International, Grounded Solutions Network, Habitat International Coalition, Slum Dwellers International, and UrbaMonde. UrbanMonde co-ordinates activities bringing together the six housing groups from different regions around the world. They focus on helping them to share practices and experiences.

Switzerland Follows Iceland In Declaring War Against The Banksters

January 2, 2016 Isaac Davis, www.wakingtimes.com Resist! Banks, Switzerland

By Isaac Davis for Waking Times - Iceland has gained the admiration of populists in recent years by doing that which no other nation in the world seems to be willing or capable of doing: prosecuting criminal bankers for engineering financial collapse for profit. Their effective revolt against the banking class, who drove the tiny nation into economic crisis in 2008, is the brightest example yet that the world does not have to be indebted in perpetuity to an austere and criminal wealthy elite. In 2015, 26 Icelandic bankers were sentenced to prison and the government ordered a bank sale to benefit the citizenry. Inspired by Iceland’s progress, activists in Switzerland are now making an important stand against the banking cartels and have successfully petitioned to bring an initiative to public referendum that would attack the private banks where it matters most...

Ed Snowden Of Banking Refuses To Attend Swiss Trial

November 1, 2015 Staff, www.afp.com Resist! Banking, Switzerland

By Staff for AFP - Hervé Falciani, a 43-year-old French-Italian national, leaked a cache of documents allegedly indicating that HSB C's Geneva private banking arm helped more than 120,000 clients to hide €180.6 billion ($205.4 billion) from tax authorities. While he is widely viewed as a whistleblower and hailed as a hero in countries where his leaked information is helping to net tax cheats, the Swiss authorities remain intent on prosecuting him. "I am not going," Falciani told reporters in Divonne-les-Bains, France, just a stone's throw from the border with Switzerland where he is facing charges of data theft, industrial espionage, and violating the country's long-cherished banking secrecy laws. "In Switzerland, the conditions for a fair and balanced trial are not there, in my opinion," he said. Falciani failed to show for his trial in the southern Swiss city of Bellinzona earlier this month, and his case was adjourned until November 2nd. As a French national living in France, he cannot be extradited to Switzerland.

Angry Romanians Call For Debt Relief

February 22, 2015 Teodor Fleseru, www.occupy.com Resist! Debt, Romania, Switzerland

Billions of people are squirming in sordid poverty trying to make ends meet; everybody is scaling down, giving up or away whatever they acquired out of greed or pride. And sometimes they give up things they need the most – or rather, it’s taken away from them, like a car, a house, their home, their life. Why? Because they’ve got a loan or mortgage they can’t pay back – usually a Swiss Franc loan. This is the drama now consuming over 75,000 Romanians who have been baited by the banks with hoopla and big promises based on the unchangeable course of the mighty Franc. It's said that at the time, the banks borrowed billions to appeal to people's subconscious, subliminal resistance and their unbridled temptations: no need for a steady job, low interest rates, hasty approval, trendy deal - stuff that made one feel differently cool, Swiss cool. And to top it off, this was the sole crediting option at that particular time in history. Go figure. The banks had no qualms about it; they scored big time. Now the fight is on. Two thousand protesters gathered on Jan. 25 in Constitution Plaza in Bucharest . . .

Why Did Swiss Voters Reject Single-Payer Health Care?

January 6, 2015 Claudia Chaufan, www.portside.org Educate! Health Care, Switzerland

Supporters of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all health care system in the U.S. were puzzled September 27 when Swiss voters rejected a reform proposal by 62 percent. The new law would have replaced the current system, where about 60 insurance companies offer mandatory health coverage, with a single insurer, the government. It would have offered all medically necessary care, paid for by taxes adjusted to each person’s ability to pay. To Americans who’ve worked for such a system here, nationally and state by state, it was a blow. What’s not to like about single payer? Swiss and American media, academia, and business sectors rushed to interpret the results. Virtually all crowed that the Swiss people had rejected government-run national health insurance because they preferred private insurers.

Swiss To Vote On $25.26 Minimum Wage

May 18, 2014 Melissa Eddy, www.nytimes.com Organize! Democracy, Minimum Wage, Switzerland

While Switzerland’s booming economy has made the country synonymous with a superlative standard of living, the government estimates that approximately one worker in 10 struggles to pay rent, despite working full time. Just as the issue has been fiercely debated in the United States, the Swiss go to the polls on Sunday to weigh in on a proposed solution: raising the national hourly minimum wage to 22 Swiss francs ($24.65). If successful, it would become the world’s highest minimum wage; more than double the 8.50 euros ($11.64) agreed to last month in Germany, which has the European Union’s largest economy, or the $10.10 sought by President Obama. The referendum is the latest twist on the global debate over the causes and extent of income inequality, what if anything should be done about it, and whether higher minimum wages ultimately help or hurt workers.

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