The New Minimum Wage Has Been Announced: The People Are Condemned to the Limit of Hunger!

News:

Turkiye: 4 of the Minimum Wage Determination Commission carried out for the minimum wage hike of 2025, after the meeting, Minister of Labor and Social Security Vedat Işıkhan announced that the new minimum wage is 22 thousand 104 liras. Minister Işıkhan, before announcing the minimum wage, mentioned the hadith of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)

«أَعْطُوا الأَجِيرَ أَجْرَهُ قَبْلَ أَنْ يَجِفَّ عَرَقُهُ»‏‏

“Give the worker his due before his sweat dries up.” President Erdogan, on the other hand, said in a statement “This figure corresponds to a net increase of 30 percent. We have once again remained faithful to our promise not to oppress our employees with inflation." (Agencies)

Comment:

The minimum wage, which has become almost a general wage in Turkey and closely concerns an average of 10 million employees, continues to be a material of abuse by politicians every year. The situation has not changed this year either. Again, as a result of a skillfully exhibited theater, the minimum wage set for 2025 was announced in an environment where they were not represented, without taking the opinion of the employees.

In this theater, first an environment is created against the workers by securing a majority in cooperation with the state-boss, then the workers' representatives supposedly play their cheap roles by threatening to leave the table with anger, and eventually the exploitation of labor and reason continues by setting a figure at the same level as the hunger limit.

The only difference between this year's meeting and the previous ones is that the president of the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (TÜRK-IŞ), who is supposedly a worker representative, did not attend the meeting under the pretext that the fee they requested was not answered. Thus, the new minimum wage, which is 15 points behind the inflation announced by the official institution of the state Turkstat as 45 percent, was announced despite TÜRK-IŞ. However, the fact that the trade union managers in the capitalist system serve the system itself, whether it is the wealth they have or the open cooperation they have with the state and employer representatives, is explained by the fact. Otherwise, a wage corresponding to one-third of the self-declared poverty line and almost equal to the self-declared hunger limit could not have gained legal validity despite these unions.

President Erdogan's promise that “We have once again remained faithful to our promise not to oppress our employees with inflation" is nothing but a mockery of people's minds. With this statement, the President showed that he is determined to make those who earn money with their labor pay the bill for the bad economic management that moves between the triangle of interest, rent and gaudiness, which attracts the property of the Ummah to a handful of capitalist lobbies, domestic and foreign. Because the increase made by the state for its own revenues is 43.9%. Inflation in food, which accounts for a third of the family budget, is 45.6% according to TURKSTAT. Again, a large share of the family budget is allocated to the rent increase rate of about 60%. These are all official figures. In other words, even these figures alone are enough to refute the President. What is true is that the employees have been oppressed by the inflation monster created by the colonial capitalist order.

What is worse and more shameful is that all this exploitation, insult and cruelty that is common to employees is the use of the advice of the Messenger of Allah, SallAllahu alayhiwa Sallam. While condemning the worker to hunger and misery, it is really a great injustice and brazenness to try to portray this as the order of Islam. Therefore, these managers should be embarrassed twice. Moreover, the solution to the problem is not to raise the minimum wage at the rate of inflation. The main problem is the minimum wage itself, which is absolutely impossible to get along with a person's work. Moreover, the main problem is the capitalist system itself, which takes from the poor and gives to the rich. The capitalist system, which does not value human beings in any way, is a cruel, immoral and absolutely necessary to be destroyed.

The solution is the economic order of Islam. There is no such concept as a minimum wage in the Islamic economic system. A wage is determined between the employee and the employer according to the type of work, its difficulty and the benefits provided. Just as the state will not set a minimum wage, the employee's salary cannot be confiscated under the name of tax. Taxes are levied only from the rich and in proportion to the needs of the state. The Islamic economic system neither prohibits wealth like communism, nor makes every path to wealth permissible like capitalism. It establishes a unique balance in the economy thanks to its special Decrees that prevent wealth from being a commodity that circulates only among the rich. Therefore, your prosperity is the only source of peace and humane living. The Islamic economic order can only be implemented by the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate) state, and it is the responsibility of every Muslim to work to establish it.

Allah (swt) says,

[كَيْ لَا يَكُونَ دُولَةً بَيْنَ الْاَغْنِيَٓاءِ مِنْكُمْ]

“So that those goods may not become a fortune (power) that circulates only among the rich among you (Allah has Decrees this way)” [Al-Hashr 7].

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Muhammad Emin Yildirim