Syndicats
In Switzerland today there are two trade union federations, which emerged from the political-religious Richtungsgewerkschaften (unions with particular ideological or party political links). The largest is the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions (SGB), with socialist traditions, which has 15 associations and almost 372,000 members. The second federation is Travail Suisse, which emerged from the Christian trade union movement, with 12 associations and 163,000 members (data as of 2010).
Both federations are dominated by two unions which came into being through the merger of various industrial, services and construction trade unions. In the case of the SGB, this is the Unia trade union, with more than half of all SGB members, while for Travail Suisse the trade union in question is Syna, with more than 40 per cent of members.
As in other countries, in Switzerland there are still traces of the division of the trade union movement in accordance with socio-economic groups (salaried employees, workers). Some of the salaried employees’ associations joined Travail Suisse, the others joined the SGB. A number of important associations remained ‘independent’. In total, these independent employee organisations have 213,000 members. The largest are the Swiss Distributive Workers’ Association (Kaufmännische Verband Schweiz or SKV) and the Association of Swiss Teachers (Dachverband Schweizer Lehrerinnen und Lehrer), each with around 50,000 members.
The number of all members of trade unions and workers’ organisations totalled 748,000 in 2010. This means a unionisation level of 21.3 per cent.1 Membership numbers have fallen slightly in recent years, by around 30,000 persons or 3.8 per cent since 2002. This has affected both trade union federations and also the independent employees’ organisations. The level of unionisation has fallen from 25 per cent to 21.3 per cent during this period. The ratio between the memberships of SGB, Travail Suisse and the independent associations has remained constant for a number of years (50:21:29). The proportion of women members has increased significantly.
