Armenia

In late 2018 and in 2019, several regional trade unions, including in the regions of Armavir, Hrazdan and Vayots Dzor, saw their accounts frozen and their union dues withheld by the respective governors of these regions. As a result, the unions had to stop their activities. While new governors have been appointed since these serious incidents, no steps were taken to restore unions.

According to the Union of State, Local Government and Public Service Employees of Armenia (USLGPSEA), in public institutions, the management often orally suggests that certain employees be included in the governing bodies of enterprise-level unions. For example, in the beginning of 2019, in the Trade Union of public service employees of Malatia-Sebastia district, the management directed the head of the trade union to change the trade union’s executive committee so as to include a person suggested by them. Due to fear of severe retaliation against trade union leaders and members, the union reluctantly agreed to include the new executive committee member.

According to USLGPSEA, similar events are frequent, but they usually choose not to confront the management and deteriorate the already damaged relationship with management.

In November 2019, Sevak Markosyan, head of Spasarkum, a State non-profit organisation, called a union meeting and chaired it, where he tried to convince union members to sign a decision to close the union. The president of the union was not made aware that such a meeting was held and found out later on that the union had been dissolved. With the intervention of the USLGPSEA, which highlighted the grave violation that such actions constituted, the decision to dissolve the union was suspended.

Article 74 of the Labour Code places excessive prerequisites for trade unions to organise a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike action. According to the Union of State, Local Government and Public Service Employees of Armenia (USLGPSEA), strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike action procedural steps take 30 days at the very minimum and require unions to get a two-thirds majority vote in favour of the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . The union indicates that in practice, such requirements make it almost impossible for workers to organise strikes.

According to the Union of State, Local Government and Public Service Employees of Armenia (USLGPSEA), in practice, national and sectoral collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
in the public sector is close to impossible, as article 48 of the Labour Code does not define the bargaining parties, leaving it to the authorities to decide. In fact, unions find themselves unable to identify their counterpart in order to engage in collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
, which leads to serious obstacles and delays. Furthermore, the topics of collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
are restricted by articles 159 and 169 of the Labour Code, as wages and paid leave are excluded from the scope of negotiation.

The Union of State, Local Government and Public Service Employees of Armenia (USLGPSEA) recalls that many workers in Armenia are still excluded from the scope of labour laws that provide for the right to freedom of association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework . Section 6 of the Law on Trade Unions excludes judges from this right while section 2 defines workers in a restrictive way so that workers in the informal sector, in the domestic work sector, in the gig economy, or workers employed in non-standard forms of employment (self-employed for example), cannot form or join unions. Finally, the USLGPSEA indicated that in practice workers may encounter difficulties in having representation at the branch level, as under domestic law, they can only become a member of a branch-level union where a union at entreprise level already exists and is also affiliated at branch level (which it can choose to not do).

Workers at the railway depot in Gyumri, the second-largest city in Armenia, turned to the National Security Service, the prosecutor’s office, and the police for help after coming to work and finding that several conductors invited from Russia had taken their place.

South Caucasus Railway is a wholly owned subsidiary of Russian Railways. The Armenian government signed the Armenian Railways over to Russian Railways on a 30-year contract in 2008.

The Armenian railway workers were not informed in advance of this replacement. Furthermore, the Russian conductors started working almost immediately after their arrival in Armenia without passing a required probationary period or being trained on the equipment or rail routes.

The Armenian railroad workers allege that this “replacement” happened because of their involvement in a three-day strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike in October 2019 to demand a 30 per cent increase in salaries. Due to the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike , the trains were completely out of operation from 22 - 27 October, including those transporting oil products and grain. These are big exports in Armenia, and supply disruptions could lead to serious fines. Therefore, on the third day of the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike , the railway leadership met with the striking railway workers and worked towards a compromise.

After this meeting, South Caucasus Railways released a statement. It said that the volume of freight and passenger traffic for the nine months of 2019 had increased significantly, and this allows drivers to raise salaries for conductors by an average of 19 per cent.

However, South Caucasus Railways did not respect their oral commitment and decided instead to replace its Armenian workers with Russian hires.

Armenian workers are indignant about the fact that they were given no explanation as to why they were suspended from work. They even threaten to take extreme measures – to sit on the railroad tracks with their families and children so as not to allow Russian conductors to use these routes.