Minimum wage

As is customary at this time of year, the issue of the minimum wage is once again at the top of the agenda.

News channels that consider themselves "opposition" are, quite rightly, blowing it out of proportion.

Since it has become almost the "average wage" in the country, the vast majority of our workers are waiting with bated breath for the decision to emerge from the Minimum Wage Determination Commission.

They will supposedly make a decision by taking into account inflation, the cost of living, economic indicators, and the demands of workers and employers.

Of course, if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Whatever Tayyip Erdoğan says, that is what will happen!

It is that simple!

However, he has not yet uttered a figure. Rest assured, he will keep his finger on the pulse of the people until the very last minute.

Still, the raise rate must be finalized by the end of this month so that it can take effect from January 1st.

Various estimates are circulating, ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent.

Mehmet Şimşek is calculating how to keep the raise low with the absurd excuse that it "increases inflation."

Even if they haven't even glanced at an "Introduction to Economics" textbook in college, anyone with even a slight interest in these matters knows that inflation in Turkey is not demand-driven, but that the government knowingly and willingly fuels price increases to transfer capital to its cronies.

The mind-boggling waste they try to pass off to us as public spending is also a primary cause.

These are all separate topics for articles, but as a citizen, I am concerned about the other side of the issue.

Let me try to explain as best I can.

Even before the minimum wage raise is announced, and even while it is still at the "intention" stage, the same reflex kicks in all over the country.

It is as if someone presses a button.

It is a strange reflex. Neither scientific, nor economic, nor moral, nor conscientious...

It is, quite literally, opportunistic...

A natural result of social decay!

Before a single penny has even entered the pocket of the minimum wage earner; before the ink on the Official Gazette has dried, and perhaps even before the bottles of that ink have left for the printing house; labels are changing with great speed, cash registers are being reprogrammed, and prices are being ruthlessly hiked up.

The minimum wage earner is faced with prices that skyrocket like missiles before they even see the raise in their wallet.

If you ask them, they will shamelessly call this a "market reality."

Which market and whose reality?

It is clearly not the reality of those forced to live below the poverty and hunger thresholds.

A minimum wage raise is intended to increase the purchasing power of those trying to make ends meet with little money; at least, that is how we understand it.

But in Turkey, this raise is added to the shopkeeper's till before it even reaches the worker's pocket.

While the minimum wage earner wonders how to make it to the end of the month, the shopkeeper is busy printing new labels.

In short, along with the decision of the Minimum Wage Determination Commission, we expect a chain reaction of frenzy, from the neighborhood grocer to large supermarkets, from the butcher to the greengrocer, from the barber on the street to the tradesman's restaurant in the industrial zone, from the stationery store to the auto parts dealer.

The links in the chain do not look much like each other, but their mentality is the same!

"A raise is coming anyway, so I might as well hike my prices too."

Let us ask openly:

When a raise is given to the minimum wage earner, is your rental contract renewed on the same day? Does the price of electricity, water, and natural gas go up at that very moment? Does the wholesaler knock on your door and say, "the minimum wage has increased, so I have raised the price of your goods"?

No.

But you increase the price.

Because the issue is not cost.

The issue is opportunity.

In the old Turkey, there was a concept called "tradesman ethics" to some extent.

Now, there is none left.

The AKP government has carefully and thoroughly destroyed it over the past 23 years.

Once upon a time, there was talk of the Ahi brotherhood.

Of honest earnings, of the rights of others, of keeping the scales balanced, and so on...

Today, it is told like a nostalgic story; as if it were a fairy tale that no one believes in anymore!

Let us write it with an open heart: what we are facing today is not a tradesman who upholds the legacy of the Ahi culture, but literally a guild of greed.

In Turkey, the majority of tradesmen do not keep cost accounts.

They make psychological price hikes.

Whatever the neighboring shop writes, they do not wait; they just slap it on.

If they hear the news on social media or news channels that, for example, "the minimum wage has become 27 thousand TL," they do not think twice and change the label immediately.

In fact, this is herd mentality.

Moreover, this frenzy of price hikes is not just "a little bit." A 30 percent raise for the minimum wage is discussed, and the price hike in the market reaches 60 percent.

The worker receives the same salary for a year; the shopkeeper hikes prices without hesitation whenever they find the opportunity.

Their excuses are ready:

"We are also in a difficult situation."

As Orhan Veli said, forget those, my dear. Everyone is in a difficult situation, not just you...

But not everyone behaves the same way.

Being in a difficult situation does not legitimize opportunism; being in a difficult situation does not justify stealing from the labor of those trying to hold onto life with a pittance.

In this country, the minimum wage earner already spends half of their salary on rent.

With the rest, they send their child to school, try to keep their kitchen running, in short, try to live and survive.

And you take back the raise given to them before the salary even reaches their hands.

For you, this is a moral bankruptcy.

My dear tradesman brother, hanging two verses in a gilded frame on the wall of your shop and placing the sign "Whatever God says happens" in the middle will not save you, you can be sure of that!

Moreover, this picture is not limited to small shopkeepers.

Large businesses are doing a more "professional" version of the same immorality.

Before concluding the article, let us underline this with a thick pen; in the current economic state, the raise to be given to the minimum wage will mean nothing for daily life.

It will be no remedy for anyone's trouble, no balm for anyone's wound!

If society has decayed, that increase will only remain on paper.

The problem in Turkey is not just low wages; it is high opportunism.

If the raise intended for the minimum wage is already whetting the appetite of shopkeepers, then what should be discussed here is not inflation, but morality; and with that, we put a period to our article.