With a veritable plebiscite, the Swiss electorate approved the Minder initiative against abusive salaries for managers. In fact, for some time there have been no percentages of this kind and unanimity of consensus among the various linguistic regions of our country. And this despite the large expenditure of financial resources used by Economiesuisse to counter the initiative.
The significance of this vote is most likely not limited to the growing disgust for top managers' salaries of millions and the fact that they are not always justified by merits acquired in managing companies, as demonstrated by the cases of Swissair and UBS, but also to an intolerance of part of the population in the face of an economy that no longer tends to improve the standard of living, but which demands more and more from employees and above all is a source of growing uncertainty regarding the future. Today many people live in fear of losing their job and of no longer being able to honor their commitments especially towards their own family. Therefore, the vote most likely also expresses this widespread malaise towards a job which in some cases transforms itself from a source of satisfaction and self-esteem into a factor of anxiety and psychophysical discomfort. From this point of view, this vote can also be read as a call for many citizens to change course, to correct course. It is obvious that the millionaire salaries of managers, which are the most blatant symbol of this way of functioning of the economy, have been seized by many as the best opportunity to demonstrate this malaise. So the vote not only showcased a revolt against executive pay, but also the discontent of many with the current world of work and the current way the economy works.
Opponents of the Minder initiative argue that it was an emotional (gut) vote and not the result of a weighted discussion. There is no doubt that in recent days the campaign has taken the form of a confrontation between good guys and bad guys, typical of Hollywood films. The good guy was clearly Thomas Minder, defined by some as the new William Tell, who fought alone against the economic establishment of our country. The villain was instead Daniel Vasella, to whom Novartis had guaranteed a severance pay of 72 million francs linked to a ban on competition. The communication of this millionaire compensation a few days after the vote appeared as a real affront and certainly contributed to the success of the Minder initiative. However, few have wondered why the Basel pharmaceutical giant, which certainly contributed financially to support the Economiesuisse campaign, made an error of this magnitude. One answer is that both Daniel Vasella and other Novartis executives most likely did not anticipate the political ramifications of such an announcement. In confirmation of this assumption, Danie's belated reverse can be cited
