Plant workers block Yerevan-Tbilisi railway
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
While people are waiting for an improvement in the quality of life in Armenia, the impoverishment of the population accelerates throughout the country.
Workers of the Alaverdi Copper Smelter blocked the railway leading from Armenia to Georgia on July 1.
In late April, it became known that employees of the idle plant in the city of Alaverdi would get their salaries only by the end of June. Vallex group of companies that owns the plant, made this decision.
One of the protesters said former employees of the plant blocked all entrances to the enterprise as well as the interstate railway due to their illegal dismissal.
The company suspended production of blister copper due to serious violations of environmental regulations and due to problems with non-performance of credit obligations on October 19, 2018.
As part of the requirements of the Labor Code, notifications of staff reductions were submitted to all company employees by the end of October 2018. The Council of Elders of the city sent a letter to the Armenian Prime Minister in February 2019. This letter described the deteriorating socio-economic situation in the city day by day and asked to freeze the credit obligations of the plant employees who had been left without work and also determine the future of the enterprise itself.
Despite the protest of the plant workers and the hype, the people who are left without job still did not get any proper response neither from the plant management nor from the Armenian government.
This is not the only actual problem in Armenia. Car importers from Georgia to Armenia have held a protest action and threatened to come home to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
These people claim that they are witnessing huge lawlessness. During a protest outside the Armenian government building, they listed several similar phenomena, demanding from Pashinyan to solve these problems.
Tigran Hovhannisyan, Chairman of the Union of Car Importers, said if Pashinyan does not discuss this issue at the level of the deputy minister and vice-premier, then all protesters will come to his home and residence.
He said the action was organized due to the fact that people want to work, and to pay taxes, whilst there are no appropriate conditions in Armenia now.
Hovhannisyan also added that lawlessness starts from pricing to calculation. He demands that the National Security Council of Armenia and the police address these issues.
Thus, instead of solving the problems remaining after the previous regime, the new Armenian authorities chose a path of ignoring the problems of citizens, thus leaving them without the promised “bright future”.