Call from DISK for the minimum wage

Arzu Çerkezoğlu, Chairman of the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions (DİSK), made a statement on the provisional increase in the minimum wage.

Speaking to ANKA, Çerkezoğlu stated that the losses of the minimum wage against real inflation, the dollar exchange rate and gold prices must be offset.

He also emphasized that the minimum wage should take its share of the increase in national income and should be determined as a wage that the worker can live on with his family. Çerkezoğlu said: “Our problem is not how many lira is the minimum wage or how many dollars it is; What matters is the purchasing power of the minimum wage. Because the minimum wage and all wage earners lose their purchasing power. It paves the way for very rapid impoverishment.”

MORE THAN 50 PERCENT

Çerkezoğlu said that the minimum wage in Turkey is not a symbolic salary, but an average salary that many employees have to live on.

He stated that the rate of those working with minimum wage exceeds 50 percent in Turkey, while this rate is at the level of 4 percent in the countries of the European Union.

Çerkezoğlu stated that the minimum wage depreciated rapidly in the face of real inflation and purchasing power decreased.

Like DİSK, his recommendations included updating the minimum wage and other wages four times a year until inflation drops to single digits.

Çerkezoğlu stated that inflation is not measured correctly in Turkey and that TÜİK has contributed to the reduction of wages by measuring inflation incorrectly, adding that government policies for 21 years in Turkey have been aimed at making the rich be richer and the poor poorer.

He claimed that the depreciation of the Turkish lira and the suppression of wages followed an economic route that made labor cheaper. Çerkezoğlu said that the country needs an economic policy that creates permanent and secure employment based on production, and basic preferences must be changed.