Volksinitiative

The federal initiative 2 for a UBI has been submitted in the form of a petition

initiative-petition @Bern

Just over 70,000 signatures were deposited last Tuesday at the Federal Chancellery.

The initiative, entitled "Living in Dignity - for an unconditional, financeable basic income", was intended to guarantee the right to a life in dignity and self-determination.

The amount of the basic income would have been fixed in a law. The basic income for all persons domiciled in the country was to be financed by a share of the wealth produced by the national economy, such as a micro-tax on all transactions or a direct levy on companies.

The initiative committee, composed of a group of independent people, including Mr. Oswald Sigg, former Vice-Chancellor of the Confederation, submitted the 70,000 or so initials obtained to the Federal Chancellery on March 21 in the form of a petition. [+]

UBI Initiative 2 : Community takeover

A signature collector in the street
Raffael Wüthrich, coordinator, at a collection of signatures in the street

Only half of the signatures for the second federal popular initiative for a UBI have been collected, and there are only four months left to collect the remaining 60'000 signatures. The committee of the initiative "Living with Dignity - For an unconditional, financeable basic income" has therefore decided to change its strategy and to put the fate of the initiative in the hands of the grassroots, the basic income movement, and all the organizations and people who support the UBI. But this will only work if many people take ownership of the initiative and if all forces unite to go and collect the missing signatures in the streets. Everyone who can do so is invited to collect signatures, and spread the word about the collection in their personal circle.

The essential information and possibilities of action concerning this last phase are available on the website of the initiative (DE/FR), and are summarized in the following message of Raffael Wüthrich, the campaign coordinator: [+]

Support the 2nd federal initiative for the UBI!

The collection of signatures for the second popular initiative for an unconditional basic income has been going on for a few months. But still too few people are aware of it and the collection is progressing with difficulty.

We would therefore be pleased if you could help us, as far as you are able, to collect signatures. Hence the following requests: [+]

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. [+]

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.

graphic

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%). [+]