New Minimum Wage Rate Spurs Widespread Indignation

The High Council on Labor recently announced the new minimum wages rate scheduled to start on the Iranian New Year March 20.  The rate has been set to 303.48 US dollars per month.  The same rate for the previous year stood at 263 US dollars.  The rate announced has prompted many individuals and workers’ organizations to speak out.

Six independent labor organizations in the prior week argued that the poverty line is actually 900 US dollars, and asked for that to be new minimum wage.  Economists at the officially sanctioned “Mehr News Agency” expected the poverty line in the coming year to be above 1,000 US dollars per month.

Earlier, four independent unions, Tehran and Municipality Vahed Bus Workers Syndicate, Haft Tapeh Sugar Refinery Workers Syndicate, Free Assembly of Iranian Workers, and Kermanshah Electrical and Metal Workers Guild, in their communique  had demanded “immediate increase of the minimum wage based on workers input through their representatives in general workers assemblies”.   They had also circulated  a petition with thousands of workers’ signatures to set the minimum wage at the rate of 1,000 US dollars per month.

Jafar Azim Zadeh of the Free Assembly of the Iranian Workers has predicted an increase in poverty and destitution in the coming year using 303 US dollars as an average monthly wage.  He gave an extensive interview to Deutsche Welle translated by the Iran Labor Report.

Considering the high rate of inflation in the coming year, estimated to be up to 25 percent, along with plans to eliminate subsidies, many representatives from labor organizations have spoken out against the new minimum wage rate.

Mahjoub of “Labor House” stated that the minimum wage for the year 1389 (the new Iranian year) should not be less than 526 US dollars per month.  Hassan Sadeghi, head of the veteran workers council, described the announced rate as a mean of imposing poverty on the workers.  Mokhtari, the head of Tehran Municipality Workers Union, termed the rate to be only good enough for the workers’ “transportation and breathing needs,” and asked the High Council how they had arrived at this rate.  According to him, the workers will be forced into secondary jobs in order to supplement their expenses, which will result in a reduction of the workers’ productivity.  He asked whether the members of the High Council would be able to sustain life on such a wage.  Ali Akbar Eivazi, the Wages Committee head of Tehran Islamic Labor Council said that “the average monthly expenses for a workers’ family in Iran is 526 US dollars. With the set minimum wage there is no difference between the employed and unemployed as neither will be able to make ends meet”.

While the rate is unacceptable to working people, this rate is not even guaranteed for daily, construction, seasonal, and contract workers.  According to the “Mehr News Agency” economic report, there are about 7.5 million workers that will be covered by the new minimum wage rate. That leaves the rest of the work force outside this jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the new budget passed through the parliament has not provided for any wage increases for government employees.  While considering the rate of inflation, and the expenses rate, the government should adjust the wages accordingly.

Kaveh of the Ad Hoc Council of Isfahan Steel Workers in an interview with “Radio Farda” said: “The minimum wage should be set higher than the poverty line”.  Pointing to the fact that “the issue of the wages can not be viewed outside the economic and political situation in the country and the balance of forces between labor and capital”, he said that “in the current balance of forces, the workers’ struggle is on this same wages under the poverty level and there are numerous workers who have not received wages for months and even worse have been terminated from their jobs”.

According to Kaveh, “therefore, the workers struggle is still few steps behind the demand for increase in wages and in such a situation, even if the government increases wages a bit, the employer using terminations and downsizing will resist them.  Hence, with a lack of general workers organizations and the low level of class consciousness, neither the government nor the private sector will take the just demands of the workers seriously.”

“The workers demands will be ascertained when they can orgnaize a nation-wide campaign to attain them.”

The High Council on Labor is a tripartite council formed by members of government, employers, and workers representatives.  The “workers representatives” are made up of the Labor House and Islamic Workers Councils representatives, which are yellow unions formed by the government to control workplaces.

With the economic crisis and more neoliberal policies set to be implemented this coming year, it will not be difficult to predict a rise in economic protests among workers.