Minimum wage in north now higher than in Republic

The minimum wage in the north was set at a figure higher than that of the Republic of Cyprus at a meeting of the north’s minimum wage determination commission on Wednesday night.

The commission set the minimum wage at a gross figure of 40,436TL (€1,066) per month – higher than the Republic’s figure of exactly €1,000. The net figure is 35,180TL (€927) per month, which is also higher than the Republic’s net minimum wage of €885.

Wednesday’s meeting had been met with various delays, with the commission initially having been supposed to meet last week, before that meeting was put back to last Wednesday.

On Wednesday, too, there were delays, with the meeting being put back a number of hours after ‘labour minister’ Sadik Gardiyanoglu was waylaid at a cabinet meeting, which itself had been delayed by a number of hours as ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel was attending a funeral.

In the end, the committee did convene but was missing one of its three major components: employers’ representatives. Under normal circumstances, the committee is made up of employers, workers, and the ‘labour minister’ of the day, but the Cyprus Turkish employers’ union announced they would send no representative on Wednesday.

They claimed that an “objective economic evaluation” could not be made at the meeting as “technical data was not presented”, and thus decided to not attend.

However, even without them, workers and Gardiyanoglu came to an agreement, even if the workers themselves were less than convinced that the minimum wage as set would last.

Cyprus Turkish trade unions federation (Hur-Is) chairman Ahmet Serdaroglu said before Wednesday’s meeting that “the minimum wage is being used as material for [ruling coalition party the UBP’s] party conference.

“They are preparing to object and cancel the minimum wage after the conference. I hope these rumours are not true.”

Gardiyanoglu denied this charge, telling newspaper Yeni Duzen that “both the employer and the employee have the right to object.”

Workers’ representatives then repeated the claim on Wednesday night, saying an agreement was “reached behind closed doors” for the new minimum wage to be abolished after the party conference.

The UBP’s party conference is set to take place on Saturday, with party leader and ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel set to be challenged for his role by Gardiyanoglu’s predecessor at the ‘labour ministry’ Hasan Tacoy, with UBP members set to vote on who will be their party leader.

Whether or not the move is coincidental, and whether or not the minimum wage will survive into next week, it is not inconvenient for Ustel or Ustel loyalist Gardiyanoglu to have this piece of good news for many workers generated with less than 72 hours to go before the conference begins.

The new gross minimum wage is 6,510TL (€172) higher than the previous minimum wage, which was set in May, and, if the north were in the European Union, would see it have the ninth-highest minimum wage in the bloc.

As well as the Republic of Cyprus, the north’s new minimum wage is higher than that of Greece, Poland, Portugal, and Malta, among various other EU member states.

In the event that an objection to the new minimum wage is filed, the minimum wage determination commission will convene again.