Epress.am News from Armenia
Employees of Electric Networks of Armenia LLC today joined the rising protests against pension reforms introduced on Jan. 1 of this year. They join their colleagues at the South Caucasus Railway CJSC and Yerevan Metro, who began protesting this week as they recently received their January wages and found 5–10% was deducted for mandatory pension payments.
Electric Networks of Armenia employees also just received their salaries and found similar deductions. They organized a petition and appealed to management, which, however, didn't respond. They then learned that 5% would be withheld from their February pay as well and decided to protest outside the company's head office.
The number of employees protesting outside the building is quite small. The employees, however, explain this by saying that in the morning management threatened to fire employees who participate in the protest. Those who hadn't come to the protest were following developments from their office windows upstairs.
Negotiating with protestors was President of the Electric Networks of Armenia Union Artyom Muradyan. He explained that the 5% of their salaries that were withheld weren't submitted to any of the private pension funds, but were kept in a separate account. The money will be forwarded to the pension funds only if the Constitutional Court doesn't find the new pension law to be unconstitutional. If the new law is repealed, he promised the deducted amounts would be returned to employees.
Muradyan advised protestors to wait till 4 pm, when there will be a meeting on this issue attended by members of the company's board. A meeting cannot be convened earlier, he said, because there will be staff coming from the regions, who are also unhappy with the new mandatory pension contributions.
In conversation with Epress.am, Muradyan said the company has approximately 8,000 employees, about 2,500 of whom are born after 1974 and to whom the new law would apply.
Protestors said they're not preparing to work today and will wait till the matter is resolved. A few of the protestors called for a labor strike, but some said the Electric Networks of Armenia is considered to be of strategic importance and employees don't have the right to strike.
Recall, 41 employees of the electricity supplier's major consumers department protested in November 2013. As a result of their efforts, their department wasn't dissolved. It will operate at least until March, after which the issue once again will be up for discussion.