[5][6][7] Additionally, it supports labour rights and tax incentives for companies that offer shares to employees.

Albert Steck of Bern composed the party's platform which emphasised democracy, rejected revolutionary aspirations, and mandated a democratic solution to the social question.

Two years after the party's foundation, Jakob Vogelsanger was the first Social Democrat to be elected to the National Council.

The SP accepted a proposal that committed the party to take any opportunity to "agitate for the introduction of women's suffrage."

Although Switzerland remained neutral in the First World War, it did not avoid the spiralling economic crisis that accompanied it.

The resulting social tension was unleashed in 1918 by the labour unions and the SP who organised the 1918 Swiss general strike.

Political action was quickly taken to conciliate the strikers with the introduction of a 48-hour working week and a popular initiative on proportional elections to the National Council in the 1918 Swiss referendums which passed on 13 October 1918.

In particular the fact that the platform called for the foundation of a dictatorship of the proletariat during the transitional phase from a capitalist class-based society to a socialist commune sparked violent dispute within the party.

[14] With increasing power in parliament, the party now also demanded membership of the government, but their candidate in 1929 was not elected to the Federal Council.

In the 1943 Swiss federal election, the SP achieved the greatest electoral success in its history and became the largest parliamentary group.

With introduction of the Old-age and survivors' insurance [de], a further demand dating back to the time of the Landesstreik was achieved.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the SP gained new followers from the new social movements that arose from the protests of 1968, but lost part of their traditional voter base in the working class.

Ten years later in March 1993, Ruth Dreifuss was elected as the first SD woman to serve in the Federal Council.

The following year, the SP supported the national people's initiative "for a reasonable drug policy" which envisioned the legalisation of cannabis.

In the 2007 Swiss federal election, the SP suffered massive losses, falling to 19.5% of the vote, with only 43 seats in the National Council.

Within the SP, the JS are seen as equivalent to a cantonal section and so they are entitled to send some delegates to party conferences.

In addition, the SP is a proponent of increasing welfare spending in some areas such as for a publicly financed maternity leave, universal health care and a flexible retirement age.

The SP aims at making working conditions for women in families easier by promoting more external childcare centers and more opportunities for part-time jobs.

It also aims at reinforcing sexual equality in terms of eliminating wage differences based on gender, supports civil union for Same-sex couples and takes an easier stance toward abortions.

The SP has a liberal stance toward drugs and is in favor of publicly regulated heroin consumption and the legalization of cannabis.

Another demand of the SP is to end the tradition of gun ownership, using severe and recent examples of abuse in terms of murder as proof.