HY RU EN
Asset 3

Loading

End of content No more pages to load

Your search did not match any articles

Sara Petrosyan

A 50 Million Dram Fine Where No Violations Were Found

Armen Sahakyan, Chairman of the Lernagorts Union of the Sotk mine employees was fired from his job on June 3, for absenteeism without good cause on May 11 and 12 (see also Cruel and Unusual Treatment, http://www.hetq.am/eng/society/0507-sotk.html). He had participated in a strike, during which he had missed only one shift. A mechanical engineer with many years of experience at Sotk, Sahakyan turned to the Court of First Instance in the Central and Nork-Marash municipalities of Yerevan, demanding his job back. The management of the Ararat Gold Recovery Company (AGRC) had fired 24 workers at the mine - 11 of which were members of the Lernagorts labor union - in response to a strike organized on May 11. Only four of them have gone to court to get their jobs back.

The demands of the striking employees had included implementing work safety rules, improving working conditions, and reviewing the USD/AMD exchange rate, which had dropped by 25% after fluctuations. Their two-day strike forced the AGRC management to meet with a delegation of employees in Yerevan on May 17. Sanjay Dalmia, President of the enterprise, hosted the delegation, which included the board of the Lernagorts Union, Yevgeny Kojemyakin, head of the Armenian Union of Miners', Metallurgists' and Jewelers' labor organizations, as well as the Governor of the Gegharkunik Province, at Yerevan's Krunk cafe.

But even after these negotiations, the employer refused to accept the strike and revoke the orders terminating the workers' employment, and continued to characterize their refusal to work as absenteeism. In court, AGRC's legal representative stated that there was no law regarding the organization of strikes and therefore the method chosen by the employees to make their concerns heard was void, and their absence was without good cause. Union chairman Sahakyan's comment that the Constitution does in fact give workers the right to strike did not change the AGRC lawyer's stand, and he repeated that "since there is no law regarding the organization of strikes, the employees had no right to express their concerns in that way." The court rejected Armen Sahakyan's request to have his employment reinstated.

The Lernagorts Union then contacted the Department of Labor at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, asking them to verify possible violations of the labor code by AGRC. The department concluded its inspection in July, stating that no violations had been committed by the Ararat Gold Recovery Company, run by Sterlite Gold ltd., or by any other of its companies. Gurgen Malkhasyan, head of the legal section in the department, stated that they had examined the grounds for the complaints by the former employees of the Sotk mine, and discovered that they were not well founded. They also discovered that the contracts of the employees are all in accordance with the current code.

It is hard to say what exactly the inspectors were examining, because the head of the legal section seems to have gotten all of his information from the management of AGRC, rather than through his own inspection. In particular, instead of informing Yevgeny Kojemyakin, head of the Armenian Union of Miners', Metallurgists' and Jewelers' labor organizations, about the results of the inspections, Arsen Grigoryan, the Head State Labor Inspector, forwarded him a letter sent to the department by Vardan Vardanyan, the director of the company. This makes it clear that the department did not conduct any inspections, but rather relied on information provided by the employer.

The letter sent by the company to the department consisted of six points, all stating one view - that in their opinion there had been no violations and everything was in accordance with the current code. Regarding the former employees, the head of the company's legal department found that the strike had no legal basis and therefore the employees had missed work without good cause, giving the company grounds to fire them. It also stated that the labor union did not really exist since it was not registered with the company and consisted of pretenders.

Malkhasyan also informed us that the department had no authority to inspect the working conditions at the mine, since the government of the Republic of Armenia has not yet developed the required standards for doing so. However, based on information provided by the company management, working conditions are improving. "We saw what we could there, and whatever the company showed us," he said. When asked directly what exactly they saw, it turned out that the representatives of the department had not noted any violations in the working conditions either.

Since the government has not made improving working conditions a priority, the safety code continues to be violated at all the mines. On August 1, a Belaz vehicle rolled down into the valley at the Sotk mine, and the driver was taken to Yerevan with serious injuries.

During our conversation, Gurgen Malkhasyan concealed the fact that the department had found numerous violations of workers' rights by AGRC. We discovered that the report filed by the department had given the Ararat Gold Recovery Company a fine of 50 million AMD, which the company appealed in Economic Court. The court found for AGRC and declared the department report void.

Write a comment

If you found a typo you can notify us by selecting the text area and pressing CTRL+Enter