Gohar Gharibyan has worked as a financial supervisor at Armenian Datacom Company since July 2010.

On November 12, the young wife informed the communications services company that she was pregnant and that she’d be taking a six month leave of work.

Two days later, Vardan Kopyan, the company’s interim executive director, told Gohar that the terms of her employment contract would be drastically altered as of December 17 and that her monthly salary would be cut eight fold.

The company is proposing that Gohar work one hour a day instead of eight for a five day work week. Kopyan told her the new terms were a result of internal financial and employment restructuring.

Gohar wrote to management asking for further clarification but hasn’t received any response. Hetq has also tried to get in touch with Kopyan but we keep getting told by employees that he’s in conference and can’t be reached. It seems that no one else in the company is authorized to comment on the matter.

The company also informed Gohar that if she didn’t agree to the new terms it would consider her work contract invalidated.

Gohar states that, “The RA Labor Code prohibits an employer from invalidating an employment contract with a pregnant woman. At the same time, Article 105 allows an employer from making substantial changes to the contract, and if the employee doesn’t agree to them, the employer can invalidate the contract. That’s what they want to do to me.”

Attorney Tigran Yegoryan told Hetq that it’s a case of legal connivance that the law prohibits. “You can’t employ legal rights to inflict harm on a citizen.” Referring to the RA Labor Code, Yegoryan states that an employer is not allowed under any pretence, even a substantial change of working conditions, to invalidate a contract with a pregnant woman.

The attorney states that an employer cannot arbitrarily terminate a work contract for a period of one month after the completion of a maternity leave.

The RA Labor Code also sets down specific deadlines for when an employee must be notified regarding substantial changes to work condition.

Yegoryan argues that in the case of Gohar, an employee that has been with Armenian Datacom from one to five years, the employer must inform the employee 35 days in advance and in writing. “They just can’t inform her a mere two days after she sent in the pregnancy notice,” he says.

In its Facebook page, Armenian Datacom writes that Gohar Gharibyan is free to take the matter to the courts if she believes her rights have been violated.

That’s exactly what Gohar intends to do. She believes the company has cut her hours and her high wage rate merely to avoid hefty pregnancy allowances while she’s on maternity leave.

Attorney Yegoryan agrees. “Whatever justification the company presents for substantially changing the employment conditions, it’s all contrived. It’s no mere coincidence that the company notified her of the changes only after she informed management that she was pregnant.”