Are you surprised?

Actually yes, a little.

Read a harrowing tale of a Portuguese chamber maid living in GVA on 3,500 per month finding it incredibly difficult to survive there. Thought that the Gen. Pub./voters might look at the poorer paid workers and realise how difficult it was for them. But then, one is ever proved wrong.

Unfortunately, the plight of the Portuguese lady is not uncommon and is nothing new nor is it confined to the immigrant population.  Single parents, especially mothers, are often also struggling to make ends meet.

And as for the elderly, there are plenty of folk who never earned anything like a minimum wage and now have only the bare minimum of pensions.

Their poverty is never- ending and most of the time is kept well under wraps.

R.

For not the first time after a referendum,I feel embarrassed about living in Switzerland vis à vis my liberal friends in the UK.

For how much longer will Switzerland continue to ignore the poverty of  working people at the lower end,and focus on it's status as a rich person' s haven?( the adverts on the wall on the way to the gates at Geneva airport are rather sickening - or am I the only one who finds that presentation of Switzerland as a place that favours wealth and privelige rather exclusive of most people's reality?)

Incidentally,I have been amazed to learn from people I encounter in my day to day life how many businesses- like restaurants( think about it the next time you eat out) - employ workers who are here illegally and then exploit them to the max.

The last line was the clincher for me:

"Most of Switzerland's low-paid workers operate in the service industry, in hotels and restaurants, and the majority of them are women."

I will continue tipping as I have always tried to, in spite of those who argue that it isn't necessary in Switzerland.

A rude, burnt-out waitress deserves a tip most, and you'll often get a smile in the end even if she could not manage to muster it from the beginning.

Which is exactly the problem that the minimum wage would augment unfortunately.

A thousand years ago, when travelling by train from Geneva to Winterthur, a friendly Albanian man sitting opposite offered me a cigarette [don't smoke - but in those days you could, in train carriages]. He told me he had been caught working illegally in a restaurant in GVA and was being deported via Kloten. He was happy about this because the Swiss Government paid his fare home, and he told me he would be back "within 4 weeks through the back door" and would start working [illegally] again somewhere.

Unfortunately bearing in the mind the disparity between rich and poor in Europe, this will continue to be a problem in that there are always people willing to work for what is considered to be below the poverty line. Law of supply and demand.

My Polish student told me this morning that low-paid Polish workers in CH club together to afford to pay the rent on an apartment because none of them could ever afford to rent on their own. But still they want/need to come and work hereabouts.

I wonder what happens to these people when they get ill or are no longer robust enough for this precarious existence?

It started about a minimum wage, but that would of course not change the situation of those working illegally. You make it sound as if there are a lot of illegal workers and people are more then willing to share that with you. If you are illegal in a country, it`s the last thing you are willing to share with a stranger, I would think.

If you really want to help these people, you support projects in their home country, so their future generations do not have to make the same choice.

Why not make the minimum wage 50 Sfr per hour?

Serious question.

Well as being a swiss! i don't think Swizerland really needs a minimum wage! Economy doesn't work like this way! Some people talking about illegal workers! that is another story! Seriously every country is suffering from this problem! Switzerland is still very tolerated towards illegal aliens comparing to many other countires! 

Pity there is no "groan" button on this website

But there are lots of legal workers being paid these rediculous salaries. I know of people paid 2000chf and all in the name of working for a startup.

Groan button is around the corner, second door to the right.

Gottcha! Been there, done that [but haven't yet got the T-shirt]

Well,illegal workers who live here long term DO actually get to know other people! They are not lepers.Of course they don't reveal their status to " strangers" but,just like everyone,when you become friends with someone you reveal things about your personal life.

There’s hope yet, Sheila.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Best, R.

They probably end up in social and then they are really looked down upon.