Are labor rights protected in Armenia?

Many people in Armenia choose a job without taking into account the issues related to labor rights. People who care about feeding their families in conditions of poverty and unemployment are forced to ignore the right to leave, do not pay attention to the length of working hours, to be registered. As a result, they work without state registration or are registered with the minimum wage, which in turn leads to other social consequences, depriving the employee of access to loans, mortgages, credit purchases, access to state assistance programs in emergency situations. A situation has been created when, on the one hand, the employees are not sufficiently knowledgeable and demanding, on the other hand, there is no proper state control over the fulfillment of the requirements of the legislation by the employer.

Heriknaz Tigranyan, who was recently elected Chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Labor and Social Affairs, has been dealing with labor rights issues since 2006, first as a Chief Specialist of the Legal Supervision Department of the RA State Labor Inspectorate, then as a legal advisor to Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center.

According to her, in many cases, an employee in Armenia perceives the employer as the breadwinner, and an employer treats an employee as his property, offers him conditions or imposes on him responsibilities that are far from the scope of employment relations, which are not provided by the employee’s employment contract. but the employee does them by default, because non-compliance can lead to negative consequences.

In her speech prior to her voting as the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Labor and Social Affairs, Heriknaz Tigranyan also spoke about the issues of state control in the sphere of labor. According to her, in 2013, when the State Labor Inspectorate was dissolved in Armenia, the citizens were deprived of the opportunity to resolve the violated rights out of court.

She emphasized the improvement of inspection skills, the involvement of new human and material resources, as well as the adoption of a new style of work. “In this regard, I think it is possible that in the last year, a large number of jobs have come out of the shadows, which was a result of the activities of the tax authorities,” she said.

Speaking about trade unions, she lamented that they did not become as powerful as their legal successors, for the simple reason that trade unions are financially dependent on the employer, do not have enough legal leverage to influence the employer’s decisions.

She expressed hope that the working group on changes in the legislation on trade unions will continue to work, there is already an agreement on conceptual issues.

“They must have legal leverage, be able to defend the interests of their members in court as unions,” she said.

Full text in Armenian