Schweiz

In der Schweiz

Poster of BIEN-Switzerland for the 18th Congress of BIEN-International

Produced by BIEN-Switzerland, this poster was among those of other affiliated organizations at the 18th Annual BIEN (International) Congress in Tampere, Finland.

BIEN-Switzerland poster for the 18e congress

Summary

On the 5th of June 2016, a fourth of the Swiss population voted in favor of a citizen federal initiative proposing to introduce the principle of the Universal Basic Income into the Swiss Constitution. After this significant milestone and based on the resulting fresh understanding of the UBI principles by the population and the political actors, actions have been taken to launch some pilot experiments in the country.

BIEN-Switzerland has actively supported the UBI initiative as well as other initiatives of the same type which may ease the introduction of the UBI at any level. Besides this activity, our organization proposes introductory lectures on the UBI and issues surrounding it, the setting up of experimental pilot projects, workshops on the themes of possible methods of practical implementation, benefits/limits/drawbacks of experiments and the formulation of a likely new federal initiative. [+]

Crowdfunding for the Unconditional Basic Income experiment in Rheinau/ZH

A majority of residents in Rheinau have agreed to an experiment with an “unconditional basic income”, which will last a year and is intended to be the subject of a documentary film to be directed by the writer-director Rebecca Panian. The team around the director which is behind the pilot study prefers not to be dependent on either the taxpayer or private sponsors. Thus everyone is invited to support the project financially.

Over six million francs need to be collected by 4 December 2018! Why so much? The sum is based on the total needed for a basic income for a year for the 770 participants. The payments would be made at the beginning of each month, as would be the case in real life. The organizing team works on a volunteer basis and is not included in the budget. If any money is left over at the end of the experiment, a poll will be conducted among the contributors to decide democratically how the remaining amount should be used.

The parameters of the pilot study are as follows *: [+]

UBI vote: one person in four says “yes”

The initiative for an unconditional basic income obtained 23% “yes” votes in Switzerland as a whole, 19.5% in German Switzerland, 28.3% in French Switzerland and 21.9% in Italian Switzerland. This is a very respectable result for something that just a short time ago was completely unknown, was backed by practically no political forces, and was proposing a fundamental paradigm shift.

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Large cities returned quite impressive “yes” scores. A number of places even achieved majorities for UBI, such as four central districts in Geneva (Pâquis 54.6%, Mail-Jonction 52.9%, Cluse-Roseraie 51.1% and Prairie-Délices 50.8%), two in Zurich (districts 4 et 5, 54.7%) and the village of Sarzens in Vaud (51.4%). [+]

Guinness Record - the world's biggest poster

Poster's aerial view

"What would you do if your income were taken care of?" The Unconditional Basic Income raises what might now well be called the world's biggest question. It's been in fact written on a 110x72 meters poster, installed on Plaine de Plainpalais on 14th may in Geneva by the Swiss network for UBI. That day the poster officially won a Guinness Book award of the world's biggest poster. The event got live covered for half an hour on a big screen on New York's Time Square! [+]

A basic income pilot in Lausanne!

Panorama de Lausanne

The inevitable "All work deserves a salary but all salary deserves work" has been pronounced. However the idea of a Lausanne laboratory to test a basic income has made it's way. The idea: "to study the effects of giving a basic income to group of people already receiving State assistance" explained Léonore Porchet. This in order to see "which are conditions that encourage or discourage the efforts of those receiving social assistance in the search for a job", she explained.

The Communal Council of Lausanne accepted this postulate of our friend, activist and member of the Council, Laurent Rebeaud Greens Vaud. The Municipality will have to consider implementing a basic income pilot project, that will allow to test this idea. Léonore Porchet brilliantly defended this postulate in front of the Communal Council and made her voice heard. The experiment is excpected to be conducted on a sample of people which already receive State assistance. Similar experiments are expected in other countries like the Netherlands and Finland.

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