The protest begun yesterday afternoon at the Agarak Copper-Molybdenum Plant continues on into its second day. Rumors of pending job and wage cutbacks are at the heart of the workers’ action. Latest reports from the Agarak Plant say that the Plant Director and his staff have left for Yerevan. On November 5th at 2:00 p.m some 400 employees of the Agarak Copper-Molybdenum Plant staged a protest in front of the Plant’s administrative building. According to the demonstrators plant management is preparing to require that 400 of its overall workforce of 1,000 take mandatory leave and to cut wages by 30%. Average monthly wages at the plant range from 150,000 to 200,000 drams. Plant employees allege that workers brought in from abroad earn much more, sometimes twenty times the average paid locals. Plant management has so far refused to provide any official information regarding the rumored cutbacks. Plant Director Georgy Devatze met with the protestors at 4:00 p.m. and proposed that he resign form his post if that was what the workers wanted. His suggestion met with applause from the protestors. Another demand of the protestors is that the workload of the foreign employees be curtailed and their wages cut as well. They demand that their salaries not be decreased. Plant management says declining world prices of precious metals are the cause of the proposed cutbacks Plant employees have also dispatched a telegram to the President of Armenia requesting his intervention in the matter.