[brightbeige]

Recent, related New Yorker article that goes into the background leading up to the vote

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/15/could-switzerl...

    Despite the prosperity, many Swiss had mixed emotions about the guest workers, who came largely from Southern Europe. As the Swiss novelist Max Frisch observed, “We wanted workers, but we got people.”

[mrtksn]

Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs.

It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the jobs and hanging around.

It’s first “I don’t want illegal immigrants”, when the immigration is legal they start doing things like take back control(UK) or sustainability (Swiss).

What they should have done was unprotected heterosexual sex 20 years ago or robots now.

I find it annoying that they screw other stuff just because they don’t want to face the truth about their character.

[vladms]

Probably the solutions mentioned (sex/robots) are not the only ones. Many complain loudly about what might be a minority of the workers, so just knowing more people would have improved their opinion. Others do not have anything better to do, and they pick up this type of "crusades" with low impact on them, but big impact on others.

But yes, probably an improved psychology (in terms of understanding yourself, trying to learn, be curious, etc), would fix a lot, still feels like a daunting task anywhere in the world.

[dyauspitr]

>More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the jobs and hanging around.

They don’t want the southern Europeans around. That’s textbook xenophobia.

[mrtksn]

They don’t want the working class southern Europeans around, they don’t have problem with the rich southern Europeans.

I wont call this xenophobia. Its just rich people annoyed by the poor hanging around outside the working hours. They often even like their poor people that do their things, they are actually annoyed by the other rich peoples employees or the kids of those employees who are seen as not as well behaved as theirs.

[throw1234567891]

They don’t want Germans around!

[vrganj]

They don't mind Austrians tho.

Germans are kind of disliked in the rest of DACH.

[throw1234567891]

That one Austrian guy some time ago brought a lot of wealth to the Swiss. Who could blame them.

[vrganj]

Well that one self-identified as German tbf.

[kensai]

Who told you that? Swiss don't even want Germans, which is actually the biggest minority apparently. FFS, Germans! The original racists.

PS. I am German.

[FireBeyond]

> Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs.

> It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the jobs and hanging around.

And it can happen implicitly or explicitly. Witness Jackson Hole. None of the workers can afford to live there and the nearest towns are not close. So the residents arranged a coach service to bus the workers in. And at the end of the day, and out. Yes, to their homes, but best believe there is a very limited window of return coaches which leads to a feeling of almost a sundown town.

[lotsofpulp]

>What they should have done was unprotected heterosexual sex 20 years ago

Unprotected heterosexual sex and births were decoupled 55 years ago. Almost as tenuous is the link between births and well raised children who can and will provide the labor that is wanted.

[Saline9515]

They don't want their son to do it because immigrants prevent the salaries of those jobs to rise naturally. Mass immigration is capitalism's answer to the Baumol law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the bourgeois left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary. My grandfather was a cook in Paris, he was making a decent wage and could buy a summer house back then.

Now the restaurant where he used to work has a Sri Lankan who works for half the minimum wage (half of his hours are undeclared) and lives in a slum to save on housing costs.

Yeah, locals don't want to live like slaves, so what? Is that the end state that we must reach through mass immigration?

[pif]

That's as stupid as it is old. Locals would do it for a proper salary. But the same locals do not want to pay the proper salary!

Turn the brain on from time to time!

[brainwad]

The 'proper' salary for a job depends on the productivity of the job. It is perfectly possible for a low-producing the job in Switzerland to be too low paid for natives to want to do it, and yet well-paid enough for immigrants to want to come do it. This is what the GP was alluding to - barbers and cleaners and builders and nurses are all dominated by immigrants because they are hitting the productivity wall.

[Saline9515]

The locals are mostly workers, not capitalists with companies and salaried workers, so it's not "locals" exactly.

[BoingBoomTschak]

Looks you forgot yours at home. Lowering expenses (so wages) in a competitive free market works exactly like doping in cyclism: you'll be forced to if you want to stay alive.

But even without considering that, the business-owning "bourgeois" class not caring about their nation has no reason to be left unchecked by those whose job is to run a country.

[mrtksn]

Why don’t you let people decide who works with who in a free market and if you are worried about low wages introduce higher minimum wages.

Or, what I actually prefer is face who you are and say I don’t want those people who are a generation or two behind in wealth? Why the gymnastics? As if there are people pf your kind who would have done these jobs but they are just sitting around or doing rocket science because the pay is %15 lower than what they desire.

Just ridiculous.

[brainwad]

In Switzerland the problem is the cheap foreigners commute over the border from Italy or France, and drive down the going rate for labour to levels where it's then unreasonable for people who actually live on Switzerland to do those jobs. This is especially the case in Ticino.

[mrtksn]

Sounds like they need min wage increase then.

[usefulcat]

If the labor supply is flexible (which is the case being discussed here with foreign workers commuting to Switzerland), then increasing wages will tend to increase the number of potential workers, but it won’t create additional jobs.

Meaning that if you are able to get a job yes you’ll get paid more, but because there are now more people competing for the same number of jobs you’re also less likely to get a job.

[brainwad]

The differential cost of living will always mean that for any wage, the job is more attractive to cross border commuters.

[Saline9515]

Most salaried people don't choose their coworkers, their bosses do.

[s1artibartfast]

Weird to see free market and minimum wage in the same sentence. The people that I know who voted yes on this don't want the people at all, no matter if the wage. They don't want the population density and they don't want the dilution of their culture

[mrtksn]

What is weird about it, free market is not rule-free market.

[brainwad]

It's an explicitly non-market-determined price.

[InsideOutSanta]

Immigrants in Switzerland don't "live like slaves," and I'm perfectly happy I don't have to clean the sewers, thank you very much.

[Saline9515]

Mainly because immigrating to CH is actually not that easy. Compare that with France or Germany.

[project2501a]

> The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary.

apologies, but those of us in the Left agree more with the second part of your sentence than the Left. Are you mixing Leftists and Liberals, perchance?

[Saline9515]

Yet leftists will always agree to import migrants to undercut locals, in harmony with the capitalist bourgeois class. Besides, I have heard this argument said to me irl a countless times by people with leftist ideas.

[lovich]

I’m somewhat sympathetic with that critique on mass immigration in regards to dropping wages at the low end, but as I never see the anti immigration folk push for regulating or attacking the companies hiring said immigrants, I am comfortable just assuming it’s racism.

Everytime I get into the weeds with anti immigration people I feel like I run through the IQ meme with “it’s just racism” on the low and high ends and {insert whatever alternative argument they have} in the middle.

[kgwgk]

> I never see the anti immigration folk push for regulating or attacking the companies hiring said immigrants, I am comfortable just assuming it’s racism.

How wouldn't it be just as racist to attack companies for hiring immigrants?

[tmtvl]

I think what GP means is 'attack those companies for not paying decent wages', not 'attack those companies for hiring immigrants'.

[s1artibartfast]

You think it is better to have people complaining about companies hiring completely legal migrants than seeking to reform the system in the first place?

Governmental policy is the appropriate place to focus attention - not Twitter outrage campaigns about random companies following the laws that were democratically put in place

[lovich]

I didn’t say it was better. I said it was indicative that it was just racism.

When I see ICE raid a farm or factory and take a bunch of illegal immigrants to praise, but the company has no consequences other than losing their employees and the anti immigration crowd is silent about that, then I feel like it’s just racism.

Also I would expect a push for limiting legal immigration from the camp that would be legitimate in arguing for less immigration to keep domestic wages higher, not necessarily pushing against the hiring of people who got past the rule system.

[like_any_other]

> but as I never see the anti immigration folk push for regulating or attacking the companies hiring said immigrants

They did this already back when Reagan granted amnesty in exchange for stronger border protections [1], it just hardly ever got enforced because employers are good at lobbying. This is slowly starting to change [2].

Despite this, yes, it is xenophobia. As much as they hate to admit it, opposition to immigration usually stems from wanting to maintain some semblance of a country, not an economic zone. Though the economic case for immigration has also been debunked [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control...

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/11/28/employ...

[3] https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2024/02/fiscal-impact-of-immigr...

[BrenBarn]

The problem there isn't immigration, it's exploitation of workers. If the person paying that Sri Lankan were to go to jail for his violation of labor law, the situation would be different.

[like_any_other]

> The problem there isn't immigration, it's exploitation of workers.

Which is made easier by immigration. In addition to the simple law of supply & demand, it also impedes unionization:

Whole Foods' heat map says lower rates of racial diversity increase unionization risks - https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-tracks-unionizat...

Immigrants Reduce Unionization in the United States - https://www.cato.org/blog/immigrants-reduce-unionization-uni...

Racial Diversity and Union Organizing in the United States, 1999–2008 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019793915602253

Amusingly, the ComputerWeekly article (citing the Business Insider article) omits the direction in which diversity affects unionization risk [1], while the two wikipedia articles (again citing the same Business Insider article) [2,3] strongly imply that diversity increases unionization, so the opposite of what their source is saying!

[1] These “risk scores” are calculated from over two dozen metrics – including employee “loyalty”, turnover, racial diversity, “tipline” calls to human resources and proximity to a union office – and shows the likelihood of employees in that location forming or joining a union. - https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252481961/Amazons-Whole-...

[2] Factors including racial diversity, proximity to other unions, poverty levels in the surrounding community, and calls to the NLRB were named as contributors to "unionization risk." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon#Opposition...

[3] Factors including racial diversity, proximity to other unions, poverty levels in the surrounding community and calls to the National Labor Relations Board were named as contributors to "unionization risk". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_and_trade_unions

[Saline9515]

Not really, labor laws in most places are the bare minimum acceptable. In Latvia, they are now hiring Indian truck drivers to compress even more the salaries.

Given that Latvian truck drivers are already the cheapest of the EU, you can figure out that legal is not the problem.

[optimalsolver]

I find it hard to believe the kids of the Swiss elite would be cleaning sewers if not for the low pay.

[mrtksn]

No no, they would have totally done it if the immigrants didn’t suppress the wages and the pay was %15 higher. Now they need to do some office jobs for 5 times the pay since the unemployment rate is %3. There are no Swiss sitting around and not cleaning the sewers because the pay was too low, it will have to fetch workers from other industries.

[Larrikin]

Immigrants do not suppress wages, business owners do.

The solution there is the same solution as the US. If the US introduced a (for example) 4x median salary fine for every year an employer employed someone not legally eligible to work the problem would fix itself. If they did not keep records assume 5 years or whenever the person's visa expired, since that is the most common case of illegal immigration.

But the businesses WANT a class of people they can underpay who can't gain access easily to legal services when the employer screws them over.

If the people are employed legally and are being paid the minimum wage, then your complaint is with the government and you should elect people that will raise the minimum wage.

[mrtksn]

I agree with your argument but this particular case is for the legal workers, just like UK significant portion of the Swiss population don’t want legal workers from the rest of Europe. They attempted to limit the legal rights of the EU citizens that currently have.

[Saline9515]

This kind of argument is the same as "guns don't kill people". Yes they do.

[joe_mamba]

>Immigrants do not suppress wages, business owners do.

Of course business owners suppress wages. By using immigrants as leverage to tilt the supply/demand of labor in their favor. Duh.

[s1artibartfast]

This is the best argument in the thread against allowing immigration. That sounds awful. Better to avoid by keeping them out

[porkchoppers]

The higher paying water systems jobs are in fact filled by the children of the elite in both Switzerland and the US; it is a very impressive green job that they tend to get pushed to leave for more conservatively stable jobs.

[Saline9515]

I grew up at the border. A friend, who wasn't the brightest of the bunch, found a job to flip burgers at McDonalds after highschool. He was paid a salary higher than the French median wage. Not all Swiss are "elite", far from it.

[joe_mamba]

Switzerland has onlite elite kids? What do all the Swiss with <80 IQ do for a living? They're probably not gonna get a job at ABB, Google, UBS or ETH.

[dyauspitr]

You’re not really accounting for where the money for those “naturally rising wages” come from. A restaurant in the US is making the same (or frankly less) than it used to 10 years ago accounting for inflation. They can’t really afford to pay people more because of the higher consumer index. So the only real option is shutting down. Or in the US for farming. They already run on razor thin margins with a lot of variability from weather, pests etc. They were essentially making it work because of illegal immigrant labor. Now that Florida increased its crackdown on illegal labor around 30% of orange orchards have disappeared in a few years and probably a lot more as time goes on.

If you want to go back to your ethnostate fantasy, people are going to have to go back to consuming what you can produce in your own country. So Switzerland is going back to a diet of essentially bread and cheese and frankly I don’t think they grow enough grain for the bread.

[Saline9515]

It's ok to have less restaurants? I prefer to have less restaurants and staff that isn't treated like slaves?

[dyauspitr]

Slaves my ass. If they had it worse than where they were coming from they wouldn’t be there. It’s also not just less restaurants, it’s wiping out the main streets of most small towns like conglomerates did in the US and that the US has been able to painfully rebuild because of Mexican/immigrant labor in the kitchens and back offices. And that’s not mentioning the immigrants that essentially run the entire US economic engine. Indians alone are responsible for founding 21% of the US’ unicorns/billion dollar companies being 1.5% of the population.

[Saline9515]

I don't care if working here in a sweatshop is marginally better. I don't want Indian dalits being used to be treated like outcasts in their host society and earning 100€ a month to be the lowest bidder for work in mine.

Besides, what you say is plainly false. Hairdressers are for instance in majority locals, command rather high rates, and are in demand. Maybe we also don't need 6 malls per medium-sized town either.

[lovich]

Pedantry, because the crackdown on labor certainly didn’t help, but the Florida orange orchards shutting down is mostly due to the citrus greening disease that’s wiping out the farms similar to how the gros Michael banana was wiped out last century[1]

[1] https://www.wlrn.org/business/2026-03-23/florida-oranges-cit...

[kuerbel]

Locals are not going to clean sewers and you know it. Society in general made it very clear over the last decades that jobs like that are shit, only losers are doing them, and that you need a degree to be worth something. If you want to blame something for this, blame neoliberalism. It helped create a culture in which educational credentials, professional careers, and market prestige became dominant measures of success, making many forms of manual labor appear less desirable.

[Saline9515]

In France, locals clean sewers. I know several sewer workers, who enjoy very early retirement (54 years old, only 12 years of sewer work). https://www.brut.media/fr/videos/france/societe/les-metiers-...

You just have contempt for your fellow citizens, people are happy to do hard jobs if they are getting rewarded for it. This is also why you often find locals in equivalent jobs that can't be done by migrants (such as historical monuments restauration), but are equally hard (and better paid).

And I'm ok with restaurants being much more expensive. Anyway in France it's mostly pensioners that go there anymore.

[collinmcnulty]

As Terry Pratchett put it in Carpe Jugulum:

> And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.

[viking123]

Then do like UAE? No permanent residency or naturalization

[lostlogin]

Amnesty International report that things are fairly bad in the UAE for foreign workers.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...

[tim333]

Depends which foreign workers. It's popular with Brits. Iffier legal protections but no 50% tax.

[Muromec]

That is kinda the intention, not the accident thing

[throwawaycan]

When people have no hope of not making it as a permanent resident or citizen, their incentives to perform well are not as high. Also immigration is a global market, you compete with other countries that might offer better conditions so you lose on the best workforce.

[WarmWash]

I don't know the overall ratio, but my experience working with many immigrant workers is that they had no real intention of staying and instead are just arbitraging cost of living between [rich country] and [poor country] for their family back home. Emphasis on home.

[BloondAndDoom]

Sounds like you have a really limited interaction with immigrants. I’m lifelong immigrant (4 different countries) in every single one of those countries majority of immigrants want to stay. Permanent residency is a constant conversation topic. There are definitely immigrants thinking like your explanation, but definitely a minority. .

[WarmWash]

It seems to depend a lot on whether it's skilled or unskilled work.

[skywhopper]

There are all sorts of reasons people emigrate. It varies based on the jobs they’re doing, where they’re from, and where they’re going. And whatever their intentions, things change. And, why must there be a universal answer for everyone?

[FabCH]

We do. Swiss naturalization is famously difficult.

But EU citizens can basically live forever in CH even though technically they don’t have permanent residency.

[kgwgk]

There are 40k naturalisations each year (a similar number relative to population as in the US). Around 13% of the Swiss citizens have acquired the nationality via naturalisation (8% in the US).

[FabCH]

How many of those were born in CH?

How many people born in CH never become Swiss? Because for the US, that number is ~0%.

And before you say: "well the US have different rules", well, ok, but then don't compare us to the US on the other number either, compare us to other EU countries with similar types of rules but different implementations.

CH has stricter naturalization laws than many EU countries and CH has mandatory military service which discourages many males from naturalizing, even those born in the country.

[kgwgk]

> How many of those were born in CH?

About one third. That would bring the fraction of naturalised foreign-born citizens in line with the US (which is also a kind-of-hard place to get citizenship, that's true).

> CH has mandatory military service which discourages many males from naturalizing

That doesn't make it difficult, it makes it undesirable and suggests that many people could get it but choose not to.

[Gud]

Big difference between permanent residency and naturalisation.