Armenian architects complain of low pay
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
Despite the current authorities' promises about a decent life, the standard of living in Armenia remains extremely poor.
Yerevan's chief architect Artur Meschyan said at a press conference that if, in the near future, salaries of the staff at departments do not increase, he will send them all home at 18:00, adding that after 18:00 no one will be at the workplace, including on Saturday and Sunday.
Meschyan stressed that the current salary rate of architects does not fit into any logic framework. All departments, whose activities he oversees, work until 23:00, he added.
He considers that his staff works overtime because threefold increase in the volume of work, while composition of the unit remains unchanged.
Although salaries in the country are low in all spheres, the Armenian budget could hardly cope with increase of wages in the national scale.
Earlier, a spokesman for Yerevan Mayor Hakob Karapetyan said the salary of 1,700 employees of the mayor’s office would increase by about 30 percent. This caused sharp criticism of the city authorities.
Chiefs charge their employees with work that does not have a logical conclusion, and it is not surprising that in most cases workers simply do not cope with the work. Assembling and dismantling a Christmas tree, demolishing a pair of buildings, prohibiting car parks in some places in the city center - this is all the post-revolutionary rulers of ''new Armenia'' can boast.
The statement about sending employees home at exactly 18:00 seems strange. It turns out that in Armenia there is a labor law, according to which he cannot let the employees go home at the end of the working day. If workers remain working late or on weekends, then the law provides for an additional fee. For some reason, the chief architect of Yerevan is simply keeping silence about this.
Recently, government officials have been explaining to the public the need for wage increases in a certain area given the long stay of workers in the workplace. Although it is obvious that working time is not necessarily an indicator of quality. For some reasons, these simple truths do not work in a right manner in Armenia.
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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94
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