I previously blogged about a constitutional referendum in Switzerland that would limit executive pay twelve times of the lowest paid employee. Thankfully (I think), the voters rejected this proposition.

The measure was opposed by 65 percent of voters, the government in Bern said yesterday. Polls, including one by consulting firm gfs.bern, had signaled that outcome as probable. Voter turnout was 53 percent, the highest in three years.

“It’s a big relief,” Valentin Vogt, president of the Swiss Employers’ Association, said in an interview on Swiss national television SRF. “It’s a signal that it’s not up to the state to have a say in pay.”

But, 35% of voters supported this measure, straight out of an Ayn Rand novel.

“We’ve lost” for now, Young Socialist party leader David Roth, one of the initiators of the proposal, told SRF. “But we’ll continue to fight long term.”

Eventually when the producers are outnumbered, this vote could very well go the other way.

H/T Zak Slayback