Amendments to the Labor Code have been made in favor of employees with children

On April 29^th, the National Assembly adopted the draft amendments to the Labor and Administrative Offenses Code, which are conditioned by the need to resolve a number of issues related to the state of emergency in employer-employee relations.

According to the the main speaker  – RA Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Arman Udumyan,  the Labor Code provides for some clarifications and definitions, which will facilitate the employer-employee legal relations in the conditions of the epidemic. The initiative defines the concept of long-term work, as well as the possibility of paying the full salary in case of the possibility of organizing long-term work.

In addition, it is recommended to clarify the cases in which, due to insurmountable force, the employer may not pay the employee for forced leave. For example, this may be the case when the Commandant temporarily restricts certain activities.

According to the bill at least 2/3 of the average hourly wage is paid in the outage resulting not  from employee’s fault after March 16, 2012, and the employer may pay even more if  wishes. This settlement can also have retroactive effect.

The project offers a number of solutions for parents who have not gone to work to organize the care of a child under 12 years of age. In particular, the employer will not have the right to terminate the employment contract or impose a disciplinary sanction on employees who, due to the situation, are unable to appear for work or appear for work later.

It is envisaged that in the event of an unforeseen relocation or unscheduled leave of absence from work during the school (including pre-school) period, the employee will be paid in full in case of being late for two hours and in case of being late for more than two hours or not appearing the whole day,  the work is paid at least according to the actual working time or the actual work done.

During the discussion, the legislators, referring to the relevant provisions of the Code, raised issues related to the protection of workers’ rights, cases of violation of their rights by employers, steps taken by the state in case of emergency, and the expediency of giving certain powers to the Health Inspectorate.

It should be noted that the draft defines additional powers for the inspection body. Thus, during the period of prevention of epidemics and other emergencies, the inspection body may exercise state control over the fulfillment of the requirements of the labor legislation by the employers, applying liability measures in cases provided by law.

However, during the discussion of the draft, Lena Nazaryan, in her speech, pointed out a number of issues related to the protection of labor rights and control in that direction, about which she wrote on her Facebook page.

“During the state of emergency, we see how labor rights are being violated. In particular, some cafe owners have forced employees to share the money they received as social assistance. Araratcement company refused to extend the contracts of 8 employees at once in conditions when they cannot find a job anywhere else. Yerevan City employees are voicing the alarm. A few days ago, the workers of the Gloria garment factory took to the streets to demonstrate.

As the government has submitted to the National Assembly a bill on making additions and amendments to the RA Labor Code, I propose to create a system of alarming violations of labor rights, through which citizens will be able to urgently, in a very accessible way to warn about their violated labor rights.

According to the project, this function must be performed by the Health and Labor Inspectorate in case of emergency. It should initiate proceedings on the basis of an alarm and call for liability in case of violations. However, the problem is that the inspection body will be fully equipped only in the summer of 2021.

Today, there is no alarm system, except for the hotline and e-mail applications, which I do not consider sufficient to respond to violations of this magnitude. I am going to talk to the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in the near future to discuss the possibilities of introducing such an alarm system, “Nazaryan said.

It should be reminded that the issue of insufficient control over the implementation of labor legislation, lack of extrajudicial opportunities for protection of rights has been raised more than once by experts and civil society representatives, but proper solutions have not been found for many years. And the problems that are emerging today are the direct result of these gaps.