Members of the United Workers' Congress (BIK) organized a demonstration in Kadikoy days before the minimum wage is announced by the government.

Workers carried a banners saying "A human wage to live, not a minimum wage" and called for a general strike.

Şahin Uçar read the statement on behalf of BIK. He recalled that the minimum wage negotiations are continuing.

Uçar said: "Millions are literally hungry, millions are unemployed today. Most of us are trying to survive. While this is the case, minimum wage negotiations are held. Our demands are not even taken into consideration."

Uçar reminded of the latest wave of suicides connected to poverty and the impossibility for people to actually cope with lack of work and money. 

Stating that they do not accept this dark picture, Uçar called for a general strike and general resistance.

Uçar said that they would defend their rights to the end and listed the demands of BIK as follows:

1. Minimum wage must be at least at the poverty line level

2. Calculate net excluding minimum wage net, exclude tax, remove tax zone to poverty line

3. Minimum wage negotiations should be open to the public

4. The burden of the economic crisis should lay with the bosses, not the workers

5. Türk-İş should work for workers

6. Severance pay is our earned right and it is inviolable!