Epress.am News from Armenia
Dozens of Nairit Plant employees on Tuesday protested outside Armenia's National Assembly while inside parliament there was a discussion on Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF-D) MP Artsvik Minasyan's proposal to create an ad-hoc commission on the privatization of the power plant and hold accountable those guilty of inaction.
Speaking to the press, one of the protesting employees said that they are very inspired by ARF-D's concern, "if only the scoundrel authorities allow the plant to operate."
"There's no other way to live — either we're going to leave this country or those in power are. It's not enough that they ate the plant, now they're eating us. A few days ago we received our November 2012 salary and that's it. Again we're going to wait for an uncertain period of time," said one of the demonstrators.
After the discussion inside parliament, Minasyan and head of the Armenian National Congress parliamentary faction, Levon Zurabyan, approached the demonstrators and spoke with them.
Minasyan said the most important issue today is the fate of the plant. "Nairit has to work and the 3,000 employees have to have daily work, as well as get their salaries on time. The main goal is to eradicate Nairit's chloroprene rubber in the international market and move the plant to another plane. The political majority, opposing this initiative, finally realized — and the parliamentary speaker said in his speech — that they agree to discuss the matter of the plant and will consider it before autumn. This issue will be discussed tomorrow morning, [and] naturally, the political majority will vote against it, but we will not stop fighting; moreover, we will demand from the parliamentary speaker to keep this issue on the agenda."
Zurabyan, in turn, promised to constantly monitor this issue and urged everyone to actively participate not only in protecting their rights, but also in all actions against the government: "The authorities will retreat only when they see people gathered in the square."