By Ruzanna Stepanian and Tigran Hovsepian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — 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, February 2.
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.
