PCP
After the vote, protection still required enforcement
The report of the SECO-led working group, dated February 2014, acknowledges approval of the mass-immigration initiative. It also explains that accompanying measures continued while the free-movement agreement remained in force and implementation of the new framework was unresolved. The vote did not instantly replace existing rules with a fully operational alternative system.
For labour history, that distinction matters. Access status and employment conditions are different instruments. A permit shows that someone can work within a particular framework; it does not prove every hour is correctly paid. Restricting or organising entry does not remove the need to check employers already present. Facilitating mobility does not remove that responsibility either.
Different rules require different enforcement
The system described in 2014 distinguished sectors with an extended collective agreement from those without one. In the former, parity commissions checked agreement provisions. Tripartite commissions observed the market and customary wages, with instruments addressing abusive and repeated undercutting. An observed customary wage and a legally binding minimum therefore did not have exactly the same status.
This explains why terms used in reports require care. Pay below customary levels can lead to conciliation or collective action. Breaching a binding minimum raises a different enforcement question. These events cannot all be counted as the same infringement and turned into one verdict on the whole labour market.
For workers, institutional detail becomes practical when they need to know who can act and on what basis. A case directed to the wrong body loses time. Information about the applicable rule and correct transfer of records are therefore elements of effective rights.
The Vaud example requires careful categories
The Vaud statement of 20 May 2015 concerns activity during 2014. It records no finding of abusive and repeated undercutting in the commission’s defined sense, while also reporting minimum-wage infringements in sectors covered by binding extended agreements and requests for back pay. Both findings can coexist because they concern different categories.
This cantonal document does not describe all Switzerland. It nevertheless offers an essential lesson: absence of a general finding does not mean nobody was underpaid. Conversely, infringements do not make every employer culpable. The relevant questions are what was checked, which rule applied and what remedy followed.
Risk-targeted checks are not a random survey of all jobs. The proportion found among inspected firms depends on selection. This limitation does not diminish the importance of an established violation. It prevents extending that proportion to a population not examined in the same way.
From work performed to pay owed
Protection begins with identifying the actual employer and employment relationship. The role performed, time worked and components already paid must then be established. An isolated amount on a document may not allow a correct comparison. What matters is reconstructing the work actually provided and remuneration received, without inventing equivalence between different situations.
Mobility can complicate this chain: records produced abroad, a firm leaving after its assignment or multiple contacts. These are problems of evidence and responsibility. The underpaid person’s nationality does not solve them. Setting workers against one another can distract from whoever determines the price of labour.
An inspection does not fully achieve its purpose merely by closing a file. Correcting pay when it is owed is a separate outcome from a finding or sanction. Public evaluation should therefore follow actual consequences, without confusing a back-pay request with proof that all money was recovered.
What the PCP advocates in 2026
The PCP considers that wage protection should attach to work performed in the relevant place and be accessible to resident and mobile workers alike. This requires bodies able to establish facts, cooperation between authorities and social partners, and resources to pursue cases through to their outcome. It means more than increasing a count of visits.
Administrative proportionality needs a practical response: understandable rules and usable records help compliant employers demonstrate compliance. Simplification should strengthen enforcement while retaining information needed to uncover abuse. Inspection quality, inspectors’ expertise and workers’ ability to report problems need to develop together.
Looking back at 2014 therefore separates three decisions: organising mobility, establishing protection and enforcing it. None automatically guarantees the other two. The PCP’s perspective, formulated today, connects these responsibilities through one outcome: work properly performed should receive the pay owed, without using the worker’s origin as a substitute for policy directed at employers.