As the Iranian calendar year nears its end (March 21) and the minimum wage for the upcoming year remains undecided, reports of government managers receiving multi-million toman salaries have sparked widespread criticism.
The state-run ILNA news agency reported: “Workers ask: What level of expertise, effort, and work has led managers—many with unrelated academic degrees—to receive salaries exceeding 800 million to 1 billion and, more recently, over 2 billion rials (approximately $2,105)?”
Currently, the exchange rate for one U.S. dollar is approximately 950,000 rials. The minimum wage for a worker with two children is around $116.
ILNA highlighted the leaked salary slip of a senior human resources manager at a state-owned company, amounting to 2.47 billion rials (approximately $2,600). The report noted that part of the company’s shares are linked to a pension fund, and the revelation has triggered a wave of public outrage.
Quoting a labor activist from a petrochemical company in Asaluyeh, ILNA reported: “We don’t have any directly contracted employees receiving less than 800 million rials (around $843) in wages.”
Majid Rahmati, a board member of the regime’s Coordination Center of Islamic Labor Councils in Tehran, also reacted to this issue, saying: “Wasn’t the legal salary cap for government payments set at 700 million rials by parliament?” Rahmati added that salaries exceeding this amount are being paid from government funds. These multi-million-rial salaries are being distributed despite the law stipulating that the net salary, including fixed and variable benefits and any other payments from any source or under any title, should not exceed 700 million rials (approximately $737) this year.
Meanwhile, the minimum wage for workers for the upcoming year has yet to be determined, and the delay has caused concern among workers. Critics believe that the government and employers are deliberately postponing the decision until the last minute to avoid raising wages to the level necessary to strengthen workers’ purchasing power.
In this regard, the regime’s Etemad newspaper wrote on March 1 that with less than 20 days remaining until the end of the year, there is still no clear news on how workers’ wages will be determined for the next year. In his latest statement, the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare has promised that workers’ wages will be finalized within the next two weeks.
Etemad emphasized that it remains unclear on what basis the cost of living basket for the next year will be determined and questioned the justification for the prolonged “delays” in setting workers’ salaries and benefits—especially when they are already earning far below the absolute poverty line.
