Our history
<p>Although the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH was officially established on 19 November 1982 — and began its activities on 1 January of the following year — its history spans more than a century. It resulted from the merger of the Swiss Watch Chamber, whose origins date back to 1876, and the Swiss Watch Federation, founded in 1924. The merger reflected a desire to achieve greater unity of action within the industry and further develop the synergies that already existed, to some extent, between the two associations' activities.</p>
1876 - 1900
Representatives in the Federal Parliament from the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Bern took steps aimed at bringing together the main industries of French-speaking Switzerland and the Jura and thereby giving them effective representation. These efforts led to the creation of the Intercantonal Society of Jura Industries on 14 May 1876. With very few exceptions, during the first quarter-century of its existence the Society dealt exclusively with the interests of watchmaking and related trades. It was therefore a natural development when, in 1900, it became the Swiss Watch Chamber and Allied Industries (jewellery, gem-set jewellery, goldsmithing and musical boxes).
1901 - 1925
This new association brought together not individual companies but cantonal chambers of commerce and industry and regional trade associations. This distinctive structure led delegates from nine watchmaking employers' sections (Le Locle, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Fleurier, Bern, Biel/Bienne, Tramelan, Porrentruy, Geneva and German-speaking Switzerland) to establish the Swiss Federation of Watch Manufacturers' Associations (FH) on 17 January 1924.
1926 - 1930
The aim was to create a national organisation bringing together all watch producers, at a time when only regional structures existed, as was also the case in other sectors of the industry. The initiative arose against the backdrop of the crisis of the 1920s, marked by overproduction, falling sales and unemployment, which had reached its worst point. Falling prices were then a central concern. A system of minimum prices therefore needed to be established among watch manufacturers, along with agreements with component suppliers and producers of movement blanks. The latter formed their own organisation, Ebauches SA, in 1926, while component suppliers formed the Swiss Union of Allied Watchmaking Industries (UBAH) in 1927.
A system of discussions between customers and suppliers was thus put in place from 1928. The first collective agreements between these three principal groups followed. Their purpose was to ensure mutual compliance with agreed prices and to prohibit chablonnage, meaning the export of watch components (except to France, Germany, Poland and Japan).
1931 - 1945
In 1931, Ebauches SA and several groups of component manufacturers (escapement parts, balances and balance springs) were brought together within ASUAG. This consolidation was supported by the Swiss Confederation, banks, the Swiss Watch Chamber, UBAH and the FH. To strengthen the system of agreements and restrict trading by manufacturers operating outside the agreements, the associations sought intervention by the Confederation. In 1934, the federal authorities issued a 'Federal Decree for the Protection of the Swiss Watch Industry', introducing manufacturing permits and export permits for sets of unassembled watch parts, movement blanks and components. The system was extended over the years, with various adjustments, before being gradually dismantled and finally abandoned altogether in the early 1970s.
1946 - 1969
After the Second World War, while continuing to provide the regulatory framework for relations between customers and suppliers, the FH diversified its activities. To help revitalise Swiss watchmaking worldwide, from the second half of the 1940s and throughout the following twenty years it organised collective promotional campaigns for Swiss watches across five continents. These were financed by a levy of 50 centimes on each movement blank purchased by watch assemblers or sold as part of a finished watch by integrated manufacturers.
At the same time, in 1948, the Swiss Watch Chamber adopted new statutes that severed its previous ties with the watchmaking cantons, making it an entirely private institution. The cantonal chambers of commerce thus gave way to the federations and associations of producers (FH, ASUAG, UBAH, etc.).
1970 onwards
From the late 1960s, to compensate for the end of collective promotional campaigns, the FH embarked on new activities of an economic, commercial, legal and even technical nature, both in Switzerland and abroad. It also played an increasingly important role in relations between the industry and Swiss and foreign authorities. Its field of activity consequently came to overlap more and more with that of the Swiss Watch Chamber. This led to the inevitable merger in 1982, which gave rise to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH, headquartered in Biel/Bienne.