Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
June 22 2005

ARMENIA: GOLD WORKERS CAVE IN

Bizarre twist in labour dispute at gold mining company leaves
management calling all the shots.

By Susanna Petrosian in Sotk

An unprecedented walk out by Armenian gold workers ended in failure
when management fired the strikers then hired them back under the
same conditions they were protesting.

Almost 500 workers from the Ararat Gold Recovery Company’s Sotk mine
went on strike May 11 to demand a better working environment and
improved safety procedures following the deaths of two people at
another AGRC mine in April.

`The conditions we work under are worse than those of prisoners of
war,’ said Armen Saakian, chairman of the union representing AGRC’s
staff. `We work 12 hours a day at a height of 2,370 metres, we have
no canteen, drinking water or other basic infrastructure. The miners
work to put bread on the table, just to be able to get up and go to
work the next day.’

Five days after the strike began, however, they were locked out by
management and fired. They have now all been rehired – minus the 80
strike leaders.

Demands including the abolition of three-month contracts, talks on a
collective pay agreement and improved conditions in the workplace
still haven’t been met. Management has, however, agreed to review
salaries, which have suffered because of the fall in strength of the
dollar.

AGRC director Vardan Vardanian said working conditions at Sotk were
no worse than at comparable businesses in Armenia. He said the
strikers were fired because they were absent from work without good
reason.

`When workers make demands which are not related to the company’s
work, there can be only one reaction – the course we took,’ he told
IWPR.

`The workers simply do not know the law. We haven’t done anything
illegal …Now they are all working normally. They realise this is
not the way to behave.’

Stepan Barseghian, the governor of Gegarkunik district, where the
mine is located, also considers the dispute over, saying that `thanks
to the talks, we have managed to reinstate people in their jobs’.

The workers, however, remain deeply unhappy, saying they were in
effect given no option but to sign new contracts under the old
working conditions, while the strike leaders have not been rehired.

`The leadership is just as intransigent as it always was, which shows
the indifference of our government,’ Armen Sahakian told IWPR. `No
one gives a damn about us.’

Another worker, who asked to remain anonymous, complained that the
Sotk gold workers feel `abandoned in their own country to the mercy
of fate’ and were angry that the government did not step in to help.

Even though the right to strike is enshrined in the Armenian
constitution, the government has stayed firmly out of the dispute.
`We have no official information about conditions at the Sotk mine.
We get everything from you journalists,’ said the press secretary for
the ministry of labour and social issues Hasmik Khachatrian.

At the ministry of trade and economic development, officials who
asked not to be named, told IWPR that it was not up to ministry to
get involved in the dispute, since AGRC is a private company owned by
India’s Sterlite Industries Limited.

This attitude has angered trade unionists like Anastas Pahlevanian
who said the union is prepared to take the case of the 80 fired
workers to the European Court of Human Rights.

`AGRC’s leadership wants to break people and it is only too happy to
take advantage of the government’s indifference,’ said Pahlevanian.

Fellow union leader Yevgeny Kozhemyakin told IWPR that the
extraordinary events in Sotk are best explained by Armenia’s high
unemployment rate, which gives management power over workers who are
unlikely to find another job.

AGRC is also facing controversy on other fronts – particularly for
its environmental record.

It was criticised for a plan to move its Ararat gold enrichment plant
to Sotk even though the mine is located in the environmentally
sensitive Lake Sevan basin.

The ministry of the environment rejected the proposal on the grounds
that ore processing is prohibited in the basin, but Vardanian hopes
the move can still be made.

`One gets the impression no one cares about gold mining in Armenia,’
he said. `As for the law, it is not so cut and dry. Laws can always
be changed, for one reason or another.’

Today the government is considering another AGRC project proposal for
the construction of an 80 million US dollar gold enrichment plant
near the Sotk mine, but this time outside the boundary of the Lake
Sevan basin.

The idea is under review but local environmentalist Rafael
Hovhannesian pledged to `battle with the same determination as we did
for the first project, without question’.

The people who live in the villages of Ararat and Banavan next to the
existing Ararat gold enrichment plant also accuse AGRC of
contravening environmental laws.

The head of the Ararat village administration told IWPR that
villagers were worried about a large, pink cloud, which is blown from
the plant over the fields and the nearby village. The substance is
thought to be potassium cyanide.

`There is a reddish-pink dust everywhere, and most importantly it is
in our lungs, and our children also swallow it,’ said Armen Torosian,
an unemployed villager.

The environment minister Vartan Aivazian is certain that AGRC has
`ecological problems’. `I am talking about on-going processes which
can affect the water and soil,’ said the minister.

In response to the complaints, Vardanian said, `Potassium cyanide is
not the most dangerous substance produced by industry in Armenia.’
He blamed the local population for ignoring a `sanitary zone’ around
the Ararat factory where they had been told not to farm, `In this
zone they are grazing cattle and catching fish.’

Susanna Petrosian is a journalist with the Noyan Tapan news agency in
Yerevan.