Ombudsman’s Statement on Labor Violations

Armenia’s Human Rights Defender’s office is mandated to intervene in cases involving violation of human rights by state bodies, nonetheless, the office continues receiving numerous complaints from citizens regarding violation of their labor rights. The ombudsman’s office has released a brief on the nature of labor violation complaints it received in 2019.

The following major issues are identified in the complaints. 

1) employers do not conduct a final calculation of due payments when termination the job, 

2) employees are unjustifiably dismissed from work, 

3) employers do not employ disciplinary actions, 

4) employers retain unjustified amounts from workers’ salaries, 

5) employers do not inform of termination of job contracts in due timing as is required by law,

6) employers transfer workers to another job without their consent and many other violations. 

Widespread and systemic issues include the following violations too:

• employers do not sign job contracts with newly hired workers, 
• employers force the workers to write resignation letters, 
• employers do not pay for overtime work. 

There is a lack of awareness of the legal regulations related to labor.

There are also no institutions, other than courts, where citizens can turn to for recovering their impaired labor rights.