The government rejected the initiative of “Yelq” to reduce working hours

At today’s session, the government rejected the legislative initiative “On Making Addendum to the RA Labor Code” filed by Lena Nazaryan, a member of the “Yelq” faction, which is proposing to grant one of the parents of a child attending  kindergarten to finish work before the end of the working day, at 17.00.

The problem is that working hours in community-based kindergartens end at 17:30 and most of the working parents are having big problems with taking the child from the kindergarten and are forced to leave the workplace early, which causes the management’s dissatisfaction. The initiative is aimed at supporting parents in dealing with the difficulties of organizing child care and avoiding the need for additional nursing.

RA Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Artem Asatryan, presenting the government’s conclusion, mentioned that the draft law is problematic, it does not serve the purpose stated in the substantiation and suggests to leave the article discussed by the draft law unchanged.

According to Minister Artem Asatryan, it is also problematic that, according to the project, only one of the working parents, having the child, has the right to use short-term working day. “In this connection it is unclear how an employer of one of the parents will be informed about the fact of using the right by another parent”, –  said the Minister.

Full text in Armenian