Azerbaijan, Baku, June 17/Trend M. Moezzi
More than 10,000 workers from five provinces have signed a letter to Iran's Labor Minister protesting their pay and the effect of subsidy reforms on their lives.
The workers asked that their minimum pay be increased based on current inflation rates and employers be punished for late or disorderly paychecks, the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reports.
The letter's signatories are employed at well-known Iranian companies like the Pars Carpet Company, Seven Diamonds, and Mahram.
Workers also protested the addition of a five percent value added tax on all consumer goods, changes in retirement and labor laws and the lack of job security.
Currently every Iranian receives 455,000 rials, about $37 (USD), every month as compensation for the government's program to end subsidies for some commodities and energy carriers which was launched late in 2010.
In an official report in mid-April analyzing Iran's targeted subsidies reform law and its effect on people's lives, the Central Bank of Iran said the law has made little improvement in families' annual cost of living and warned against high inflation neutralizing any positive effect the country's targeted subsidies program could have.