Epress.am News from Armenia
Karmen Abgaryan, 41-year-old native of the Charentsavan village in Armenia’s Kotayk province, has worked for Sanitek Armenia waste management company for over two years. Despite the fact her shift had already ended, on March 14 morning company officials made the woman stay and clean the roadway on Yerevan’s Heratsi street because mayor Taron Margaryan’s motorcade was expected to drive by the area. The woman, however, was hit by a car as she tried to cross the street to carry out her duties. Epress.am on Wednesday visited Abgaryan in her hospital room and spoke with the woman about the details of the accident and the working conditions in Sanitek.
Abgaryan, who suffered severe shoulder and head injuries in the accident, has been in hospital for nearly 10 days; she underwent a surgery yesterday to repair her shattered shoulder. The woman, a single mother of 4 kids, will not be able to go back to work for a year.
No one from Sanitek, she told Epress.am, has come to visit her after the accident; “I feel very insulted. I’ve worked for them dedicatedly for 2 years, without off days, and this is how they treat me…”
“My shift on March 13 started at 10:30 pm. I worked my usual 8 hours and finished at 6:30 in the morning,” the woman said. She added that the area of Myasnikyan Avenue to Heratsi street is being cleaned by a group of 8-9 workers who come to Yerevan from Charentsavan daily. “I had already finished cleaning my portion and was waiting in the minibus [to go back to Charentsavan]. At 8:30 they decided that the center [of Heratsi street] had to be cleaned because the mayor was supposed to pass by the area.”
According to the woman, after cleaning the center of the Heratsi roadway, the cleaners had to go up the Myasnikyan avenue to meet up with the rest of the group; “We got off the minibus and had to cross the street. The traffic had already begun, but we could not use the above-ground passway because we had to be exactly at the center of the street. I was hit by a car when crossing the street, and if it weren’t for the other cleaner, who managed to grab my arm and pull me back, the consequences would be much graver for me.”
Despite the fact that the employer is obliged to create safe working conditions for the cleaners, Abgaryan continued, no safety measures had been taken by Sanitek on the day of the accident; “They told us to just go and do our job. When the company had only opened, we were told that we would not have to go further than 75 centimetres into the roadway, but now we are forced to go 3-4 meters.”
When contacted by Epress.am reporters, a Sanitek spokesperson said Abgaryan had been doing her regular job and all safety precautions had been taken by the company; “We usually block her back with a car; the car follows her slowly from behind, but the area that she has to clean is kept open. The driver must not have noticed her on the road, but he did not run away; he stayed and helped her.”
Abgaryan has been working for Sanitek since 2014. She used to make AMD 105 000 a month for over a year before the company changed the employees’ contracts. “They made us sign new contracts one day without even allowing us to read them through. Then we found out that the salary had been cut by 20 000 drams,” the woman said, adding that she worked 8-hour shifts seven days a week for a mere AMD 84 000 wage.
According to her contract, Abgaryan continued, she is entitled to a 24-day annual paid vacation and one day off a week. “There were days, however, when I was shouted at when I tried to take the day off. ‘Who will clean the area if you stay home?’ they told me. I’ve even had to clean both sides of the Heratsi street on my own, but was never allowed to take a minute to rest. [Sanitek officials] follow us in cars and when they see us sitting down, they call us and demand that we go back to work. In the winter, when we would stop to drink some tea or coffee, they would call and reprimand us for taking a coffee break,” the woman said.
On windy days, she went on, they would go home after completing their shifts, rest for a short while and come back to work; “We have had to work 17-hour shifts without additional pay. Sometimes they will give some of the workers bonuses, but not to everyone.”
Abgaryan is now using the Sanitek-provided health insurance to cover her medical bills. “They would tell me ‘If one day you are hit and killed by a car, we will pay a 2-million dram compensation to your family,’” the woman recounted.
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