by Ariane Gigon in Zurich, swissinfo.ch
December 9, 2013 – 11:00

Residents of villages in canton Zurich are putting morals before money by voting to return tax windfalls from commodities giant Glencore to the countries where they were generated, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Colombia.

In the small village of Hausen am Albis, home to 3,300 people, a shout of joy and loud applause greeted the result of a vote in early December – residents had just accepted an initiative to give part of the tax windfall indirectly generated by Glencore to development aid projects abroad.

Hausen am Albis is the second commune in canton Zurich to take such a decision, hailed by supporters as “non-conventional and courageous”, and derided by opponents as “detrimental and dangerous”. By December 10, three other communes in the most populous Swiss canton will vote, by a show of hands, whether or not to follow suit.

Few observers could have predicted the sudden notoriety of the so-called “pig district” – Säuliamt” in German – home to the bucolic hills of Affoltern am Albis and a neighbour to cantons Aargau and Zug. Glencore, which posted a turnover of $214.5 billion (CHF191.4 billion) in 2012 and in April this year merged with Xstrata, is based in the commune of Baar not far from the city of Zug.

Although the company’s headquarters are in canton Zug, Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg lives 20 kilometres away in Rüschlikon in canton Zurich. So that is where the South African declares his personal income and fortune.

In 2011, when Glencore was floated on the stock exchange, Glasenberg, who owned 20% of the capital, earned a tidy sum of several billion dollars. His local commune therefore saw its tax revenues rise by CHF360 million. Of this, some CHF165 million were immediately redistributed to the canton’s most disadvantaged communes via a special fund.

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