Iran says the country’s minimum wage will increase by 25 percent for the upcoming Iranian new year, but labour activists and economic experts have dismissed the hike as insufficient.
Official sources have put the rate of inflation at 31 percent, which has made labour activists critical of the mere 25-percent increase to the minimum wage.
Kamal Athari, an economist, told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) that the proposed minimum wage “will deprive workers of the bare necessities of life.”
Athari maintained that the inflation rate in fact exceeds 50 percent, and the poverty line in urban areas of the country is at 10 million rials a month.
Saeed Torabian, an independent labour activist, told ILNA that the proposed minimum wage does not even match the estimates of “those who had participated as workers on the Supreme Labour Council to determine the minimum wage.”
Torabian says they had told the council that the expenses for a working-class household have gone up by 64 percent. He stressed that, on this basis, the council is contravening labour laws, which provide for wage increases in line with the rate of inflation.
Athari also tells ILNA that the inadequate wage increase indicates “officials are deviating from constitutional provisions.”
