Armenian Mining Giant Hit By First-Ever Workers Strike

YEREVAN — Production operations at Armenia’s largest mining enterprise remained disrupted for a fourth consecutive day on Monday due to a walkout by hundreds of its employees demanding a 50 percent pay increase and better working conditions.

Several dozen of those workers reportedly continued to camp out inside the premises of the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC) located in the southeastern town of Kajaran.

“Work has stopped in several production facilities of the combine,” a ZCMC spokesman told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Sunday.

The company management rejected the workers’ demands, described the strike as illegal and threatened its participants with “legal proceedings” shortly after it began on Friday. In a series of statements, it said that the protesters represent only a fraction of the ZCMC workforce numbering some 4,600 people. It also argued that they earn between 329,000 and 594,000 drams ($825-$1,490) per month, or well above Armenia’s current average wage of 291,000 drams.

A leader of the striking workers, Shavarsh Margaryan, countered that these figures represent their pre-tax gross wages.

“People earn 30 percent less than those sums,” he said, accusing the management of misleading the public.

On Sunday, the strike leaders organized what they called a secret ballot designed to disprove the management’s claims that the work stoppage is not backed by the majority of the ZCMC workers. According to them, more than 2,400 workers took part in the ballot that ended on Monday evening.

Eduard Pahlevanyan, the head of a labor union representing people working in Armenia’s mining and jewelry industries, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that he and several representatives of the striking workers will meet with senior ZCMC executives after ballots cast in the declared plebiscite are counted later in the day.

The ZCMC spokesman insisted on Sunday that “the management is not going to negotiate with the wrongdoers.”