Abstract
In the course of the 20th century the remuneration of labour has been fundamentally transformed, whilst remaining still formally based on the payment of wages or salaries for working time in employment. It is commonplace to talk about direct (net) and indirect (gross) wages. Social benefits may or may not be related to wages. Nowadays added-up income and benefits plus social services by far exceed direct gross as well as, even more, net wages and salaries. Given all these provisions, an unconditional basic income for every citizen has become a popular issue. Switzerland has put it to a referendum on 5th June 2016. However, as a basic income for everybody does not diminish or compensate for inequalities, ‘Think Network’, a Swiss trade union think tank, has adopted a different strategy based on a ‘General Income Insurance’ (Allgemeine Erwerbsversicherung). A different approach again is that of the French ‘Institut Européen du Salariat’, which advocates salaries paid out of a national wage fund to every adult person according to his/her vocational qualification, whether employed to work or in education. This paper will evaluate various approaches concerning wage relations at EU level
