‘Minimum wage should rise’,

PRIVATE sector workers need to be paid a minimum wage of between 4,800TL and 5,500TL before tax to reflect the cost of living, it was claimed this week.

The calls from a prominent trade union leader and consumer rights champion came after Finance Minister Serdar Denktaş announced that inflation for the first 11 months 2018 had been 32 per cent — later put at 29.96 per cent for the year as a whole — and that government fees were going up by between 28 and 30 per cent on New Year’s Day. Türk-Sen trades unions federation head Arslan Bıçaklı said the minimum wage — set last August at 2,620TL gross per month, or 2,279TL net — needed to be at least 4,800TL, citing the cost of a simit (bread) and a cup of tea at 6TL or 7TL.

“Let’s assume it’s 6TL, so that means a family of four needs 2,160TL just to have a meal of tea and simit three times a day for a month — and that’s assuming it’s all they eat,” he told Cyprus Today.

Referring back to a storm last month after National Unity Party general secretary Hasan Taçoy complained that MPs’ salaries of some 16,000TL to 17,000TL gross were “insufficient” — a comment he said at the time had been “taken out of context” — Mr Bıcaklı commented: “If an MP is complaining about their salary, what are people living on the minimum wage supposed to do?”

He said he had passed the Türk-Sen proposal to Labour and Social Security Minister Zeki Çeler — himself at the centre of a payrelated storm after flying out on holiday in August while the last round of minimum wage negotiations was faltering, and defending the decision to do so from the South’s Larnaca airport by saying fares from Ercan were too expensive.

The Minimum Wage Commission, headed by Mr Çeler and including union and bosses’ representatives, had been due to convene last month, but no meeting has been announced so far.

“Back in August the minister said economic conditions did not allow for a higher [minimum wage] figure . . . but if officials now say there is no money . . . how come they allocated 13 million TL in funding to political parties under the 2019 budget? Is there money for politicians but not for workers?

“MPs and ministers will enjoy an increase in salaries from January 1, but when will workers in the private sector see the minimum wage go up?”

Consumers’ Association head Hasan Yılmaz Işık argued for gross minimum pay of 5,500TL a month, in light of average per capita income quoted as $13,000 a year.

“Consumers have seen huge price hikes on basic goods and unfortunately they haven’t gone down despite a decline in foreign currency rates. We call on the government to regularly inspect prices in the shops . . . because superficial discounts do nothing but mislead.

“People are ringing and telling us about their plight, saying they can’t afford to live at these high prices.”