Over the past year, the gap between workers’ wages and current living costs has turned class disparities into a deep chasm. The alarming rise in prices and the daily increase in inflation rates have resulted in the monthly incomes of workers and other wage earners barely covering a few days of a family’s needs.
Everyday experiences and the tangible reality of life have made the necessity of increasing wages the central focus of daily protests by wage earners and pensioners. Today, workers and wage earners have realized that the arguments of analysts and economists who support capitalists and their governments, claiming that raising wages has inflationary consequences, are utterly unfounded. This is because, in recent years, despite the stagnation or slight increase in wages, inflation rates have skyrocketed both domestically and globally. On the other hand, the unprecedented accumulation of wealth and living standards in the capitalist class over recent years clearly indicates that capitalists and their governments not only have the economic capability to increase wages severalfold but also have the potential to restore social services that have been stripped from society by various governments.
The issue of wages has always been one of the most contentious economic and social issues. Keeping labor wages low has become the main concern of capitalists, governmental organizations, and planners of the capitalist class. Conversely, the struggle for increasing the minimum wage is also the primary demand of workers’ daily protests. It is no secret that increasing the minimum wages in accordance with general living costs, based on current standards and lifestyle, is a serious concern across all societies. This is because the minimum wage of workers serves as the basis for the overall wage level in both the public and private sectors. Therefore, any increase or decrease in this base directly affects the welfare and livelihood of a large portion of the workforce in society.
Over the past decade, especially in recent years, the issue of wages has taken on various forms, becoming a central issue in workers’ struggles worldwide. The national and global policies of capitalist governments, exacerbating economic chaos, political and military competition, and the displacement of labor in various regions around the world, have led to poverty and a decrease in the purchasing power of workers and wage earners. This situation and the increasingly deep class divide have propelled large sections of the global working class into battles over wage increases and improvements in living standards.
In Iran, the unstable economic conditions and the low payment rates have transformed the issue of wages into the main axis of workers’ struggles and protests. The results of these struggles, regardless of their degree of organization, significantly impact the living conditions of different sections of the labor force and other wage earners.
In the current context, and considering the level of organization among workers, the issue of increasing wages is not merely about the degree of welfare and livelihood of the workers but also the struggle for wage increases in line with current living costs serves as a groundswell for mobilizing large sections of the workforce and articulating broader societal demands. As the class divide deepens and the purchasing power of large sections of the middle class declines, bringing them closer to the living conditions of the working class, the issue of wages and welfare has become a concern for broad social groups.
Today, given the general position of workers, the struggle for wage increases can serve as a foundation for broader organization among the working class and other sections of the workforce.
Although wages are considered an economic issue, the level of wages and, consequently, the welfare of extensive segments of society depend on the organizational strength and social power of workers in opposition to capitalists and their governments. This is precisely why the level of welfare and social freedoms has a direct correlation with the efforts of activists and labor leaders to organize and establish labor organizations, as the possibility of determining wages in line with living costs and other social demands ultimately lies in the streets and factories.
Today, the struggle for increasing wages in line with current living costs is not only an immediate action to halt the further spread of poverty and misery in society and to combat growing despair and social disarray but also a basis for social organization and the establishment of labor organizations to achieve the most fundamental economic, social, and political demands.
Solidarity Committees with Iranian Workers Movement – Abroad
Campaign in support Iranian workers – (CSIW)
