(Bloomberg) -- Turkey will investigate complaints about the treatment of employees at a warehouse used by the supermarket chain Migros Ticaret AS, the labor and social security minister said.

Vedat Bilgin said on Saturday on Twitter that he wouldn’t allow workers to be victimized. It follows public outcry against the detention of a group of dismissed workers that protested their treatment by the company. 

About 250 employees at a Migros warehouse in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district stopped work in early February, demanding better pay and improved working conditions. The company announced on Feb. 10 it had laid off the protesters, citing disruptions to the food supply chain.

The action came at a time that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been under pressure to lower food prices in Turkey. 

Dozens of workers were arrested by police on Friday after they attempted to protest in front of the Istanbul residence of Tuncay Ozilhan, chairman of the grocery chain. Photos and videos of handcuffed workers inside police vehicles triggered boycott calls on social media. 

The protesters’ demands are reasonable, Betul Celep, an executive at the DGD-SEN labor union that represents the workers, told Bloomberg News on Saturday. They include a monthly wage of about 5,000 liras ($366) and compliance with workplace health and safety rules. 

“The employers are calling workers one by one, trying to convince them to return to work with the same old conditions,” Celep said. “Until now they’ve been successful with about 30 workers, but the rest continue protesting,” she said. Seventy workers have agreed to return, Sozcu newspaper reported on Friday citing the company. 

Migros is one of the top grocery chains in Turkey, operating 2,564 domestic stores as of January. The company is expected to post a profit of 193.6 million liras in 2021, according to the mean estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 12 analysts. Its Istanbul-listed shares have risen 6.9% so far this year. 

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