[Marxism] Dramatic Decline in Turkish Wages

[Emrah Goker]

The situation is quite bad for the Turkish workers as the crisis rolls
on. But I need to play the devil's advocate for a minute, not to paint
a bright neoliberal future for Turkey, but just for the sake of
statistical consistency. The WSWS article
(http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/turk-j30.shtml) relies on data
analyzed in a research note ("According to economist Professor
Seyfettin Gursel, director of the Centre for Economic and Social
Research (BETAM) at Bahçesehir University...") published on June 29th.

Yet yesterday, the authors re-published the note with a correction:
Their first calculation treated Turk-Stat's gross wages-salaries index
as though it represented industrial employment wages-salaries, but it
did not. The correct calculation, taking into account only industrial
employmeny wages-salaries gives an increase of 7.2% (instead of a 4%
decrease) in nominal wages, compared to the first quarter of 2008, in
the first quarter of 2009. Therefore, the comparative fall of real
wages is not 11.4%, but 2%, accounting for the inflation.

(The corrected research note in Turkish:
http://betam.bahcesehir.edu.tr/UserFiles/File/ArastirmaNotu040.doc)

While the real decline in wages (compared to 2008) is not yet
dramatic, I can follow from the "secret" world of Turkish research
companies (serving "crisis tracking" statistical packages, reinforced
by consumer surveys, to concerned businesses) that (a) purchasing
power did not recover since November 2008, (b) small neighborhood
businesses (according to surveys of pharmacies, groceries, small
liquor stores, etc.) are having a very bad time since January 2009,
and (c) the attempt to boost car and electronic good sales by lowering
the VAT did not work.