by Stanislas Jourdan | Apr 18, 2016 | News
Ahead of the national referendum taking place early in June, the Swiss city of Lausanne has adopted a motion to test a basic income and assess the effects of the policy.
Will Lausanne be the first city in Switzerland to test a basic income? It is possible. Last Tuesday, April 12th, the City Council took an important first step, when it adopted a motion (pdf) aimed at running a basic income experiment. This non legally-binding motion – which asks the Executive Council of the Municipality to implement a pilot – passed by a close margin (39 votes in favor versus 37 against, with 8 abstentions).
The motion has received significant support from the Green Party. It was originally tabled by Green Party member Laurent Rebeaud, who passed away in December. Léonore Porchet, President of the Lausanne Green Party, says, “Basic income offers a solid and securing social floor, as opposed to the fragile social safety net that we know today. The freedom provided by basic income encourages activity, social inclusion and innovation. In addition it values and support the ‘free’ work such as volunteer activities.”
Recent polls conducted in Switzerland bolster Porchet’s contention that a basic income would “encourage activity” rather than subsidize laziness, as some detractors fear. These polls conclude that only 2% of Swiss people would stop working if they had a basic income, while 22% would become entrepreneurs and 54% would take opportunities to improve their qualifications.
Although the Lausanne City Council’s motion remains vague about the specifics of the experiment, it proposes that it should be monitored in cooperation with the University of Lausanne, in a way similar to the basic income pilot planned for the Dutch city of Utrecht, which is being developed in collaboration with the University of Utrecht. Lausanne is a city of 130,000 inhabitants located in the French speaking region of Switzerland. However, the experiment would include only a sample of the population.
To run the experiment, the city will need financial support from the Canton and the Confederation. However, this is likely to be feasible, as it should not incur more costs than the existing budget for social benefits.
The Lausanne experiment’s main goal would be to assess how work incentives change depending on the conditions for receiving social benefits, as Porchet explains on the website of the local section of the Green Party.
Picture CC Alice
by Stanislas Jourdan | Apr 8, 2016 | News
Ahead of the national referendum taking place next June 5th in Switzerland, basic income activists are aiming at creating the World’s biggest poster with basic income slogan on it. They need 180,000 to make it happen.
An historical campaign is happening in Switzerland right now. While the whole country will vote on basic income on June, an unprecedented level of campaign activities, events and press coverage are happening.
Now the famous Basel-based group Generation Grundeinkommen (Generation Basic Income) is taking the challenge to the next level by attempting to break the Guinness-World-Record for the largest poster on earth.
The activists want to print a massive 7500m2 poster (as large a soccer field), on which it will be written: “WHAT WOULD YOU WORK ON, IF FOR YOU YOUR INCOME WAS TAKEN CARE OF?”
Big questions deserve big poster
The poster aims at raising attention on basic income ahead of the referendum, explains the activist: “Good questions are the best answers. So let’s step forward asking the biggest question on Earth.”
The poster will be displayed in mid May. “We have several places in mind. One possible option is the Plain Palais in Geneva. This is a big space in the middle of the city with flea-markets and carnivals. It’s a space made for the people which suits our initiative.” The definite location will be communicated through their startnext-page.
Big questions also imply big numbers. To make this happen, the organisers are pledging 180,000 euros on a crowdfunding platform. Already 100,000 euros have been collected thanks to 600 donators. They still need to cover 40% of their funding need (105k euros) by April 24th. To make the operation financially less costly and environment-friendly, the poster material will be manufactured into carry-bags and backpack afterwards.
The campaigning group is experienced with large and successful street happenings. In 2013, they famously dumped 8 millions 5 pennies coins on the Parliament’s Square in Bern, which massively contributed to promoting basic income worldwide.
“Our Question deserves to get the biggest on earth. And all of you can carry it together with us. So get your question bag or your world record-backpack and help us to bring the biggest question on earth all over our lovely planet!”
You can make a donation from www.startnext.com/groesstefrage
by Andre Coelho | Apr 7, 2016 | News
The Future of Work congress, to be held in Zurich on the 4 May 2016, will focus on the need for social innovation at a time of rapid technological change, which is already generating massive disruption in the job market. Basic income features prominently in the conference programme, with its central role in questions around the future of the welfare state, the impacts of large-scale computerization and the overall model of work in the near future.
This event will happen at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, with sessions conducted in English and German. It is supported by the Roosevelt Institute, CATO Institute, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the RSA, first world development and the Institute for the Future.
The conference will feature many pre-eminent speakers from civil society, politics, academia and business, including Guy Standing, Bruno Frey, Yanis Varoufakis, Enno Schmidt and Natalie Foster.
More information at: Conference Future of Work website.
by Kate McFarland | Apr 4, 2016 | News
Swiss government has released a new report showing the implementation of a basic income in Switzerland would cost far less than it had previously anticipated.
On March 11th, the Swiss Ministry of Social Security released a new calculation of the cost of a universal basic income. According to the latest estimates, a UBI would cost the country only 25 billion Swiss francs. This is substantial revision from previous estimates, which had put the cost as high as 154 billion Swiss francs.
The revised calculation will likely increase the appeal of a UBI as the country approaches a referendum election on June 5th, in which a basic income is one of five propositions that will be voted on.
According to the basic income proponents in Switzerland, the introduction of a basic income would only cost 2 billion francs.
Reference:
“Swiss Government Reveals New Basic Income Calculations,” 17 March 2016, Basic Income Switzerland. (The article includes link to the official document, in German.)
Image Credit: “Shifting to Francs” by Storm Crypt (Flickr, creative commons), 6 April 2009.
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by Toru Yamamori | Jan 30, 2016 | News
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum was held during 20th-23rd January 2016. A group ‘Robots for Basic Income‘ countered the Forum with their demand for a Basic Income. The group released ‘Declaration of Davos 2016’:
Robots demand for universal basic income as a humanistic response to technological progress
We – the robots – call for an universal basic income for humans. We want to work for the humans to relieve them from the struggle for income. We are really good in working. But we do not want to take away people’s jobs and thereby bring them into existential difficulties.
Che Wagner, ‘human spokesperson’ of the group, said that they need a wider support for their campaign for the national referendum, which will take place in June this year.
Videos on what the group perform in Davos can be watched online.
In the meantime, a panel of the World Economic Forum discussed the idea of basic income:
