The recent takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, with the Swiss state stepping in to cover losses, highlights the need to socialise the financial sector, says Movement for Socialism.
Switzerland
Barry Healy reviews two Swiss films showing the country's extraordinary history of radical personal and political struggle.
Following United States President Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, climate activist Greta Thunberg delivered this stinging rebuke to the world’s leaders for their failure to take serious action on climate change:
Zurich’s Paradeplatz is home to Swiss banks such as Credit Suisse and UBS and the main slogan of the Occupy Paradeplatz protest is "Save human beings, not banks".
On November 7, 50 people were living at the Occupy Paradeplatz camp at Lindenhof, a nearby park. Occupy Paradeplatz holds daily assemblies and weekly rallies.
Swiss women and a major Swiss union held a national day of action on June 14 for wage equality for women and for a minimum wage of US$4000 a month for all workers.
The minimum wage that the union and women are seeking would be the equivalent of $48,000 a year. The minimum wage is now $3000 a month, which was won in the 1980s.
Switzerland has one of the highest costs of living in the world.
About 20,000 people took part in Switzerland's biggest anti-nuclear march in 25 years on May 22, Swissinfo.ch said that day.
“Chanting and waving placards, anti-nuclear protesters marched in two groups to the site of Beznau, Switzerland’s oldest nuclear power plant which is located in canton Aargau,” the article said.
Organisers said about 150 political parties and environmental organisations joined the march.
According to the June 26 Solidarites, the Swiss multinational Nestle infiltrated and spyied on the anti-globalisation activist group Attac in the Swiss canton of Vaud during the publication of a book critical of the company.
A new weekly left newspaper, antidot, has been launched in the German speaking part of Switzerland. The first issue appeared on May 1. The paper is published by a collective, the antidot Verein, comprising a broad spectrum of individuals and organisations, including a branch of the Greens, a branch of the Workers Party (PdA), the Socialist Alternative (SolidariteS), ATTAC Switzerland, anarchist organisations and others. The newspaper aims to provide an antidote to mainstream media and a forum for discussion among the social, environmental and political movements and groups on the left in the German speaking part of Switzerland. Visit <http://antidot.ch>.
Over the February 3-4 weekend, 60 people participated in a conference on European anti-capitalist left unity projects organised by left-wing Swiss party SolidariteS. Held in the border town of Le Locle in the Neuchatel canton, the conference attracted mainly SolidariteS members and supporters, but members of the French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) also attended.
On September 24, a Swiss referendum overwhelmingly validated two anti-immigration laws. The laws received 68% support.