The Meeting of the Republican Tripartite Commission
On 24 May a regular meeting of the Republican tripartite commission was held chaired by the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs of the Republic of Armenia A. Asatryan. The meeting was attended by the representatives of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia, members of the Republican tripartite commission.
The agenda included three issues:
1. Presentation of the work done in 2015 by the State Health Inspectorate affiliated to the Ministry of Healthcare. The need for cooperation of the social partners in improving of inspection activities with technical and expert support of the ILO.
2. Using the results and recommendations of the Conference on "The favorable business environment for the sustainable development of enterprises", held by the Republican Union of Employers of Armenia jointly with the International Labour Organization (ILO), in the implementation of further reforms.
3. Presentation and discussion of the draft law "On Amendments and Additions to the Labor Code of the Republic of Armenia”.
The head of the occupational safety supervision department of the State Health Inspectorate A. Mkrtchyan presented the report on the work done by the Inspectorate in 2015. It was decided to entrust the inspectorate to draw up recommendations for the implementation of more effective monitoring of the occupational safety and health of workers and after discussing them to submit to the inspection team of the reforms implementation.
It was decided to discuss the expediency of the ratification of ILO Conventions № 155, 184, 187.
Chairman of the Republican Union of Employers of Armenia G. Makaryan spoke about the way of using the results of conducted together with the ILO analysis of a favorable business environment for enterprise development in the implementations of the further reforms.
Director of the “National Centre for Legislative Regulation” Foundation of the RA government staff A. Yeghiazaryan presented the RA draft law “On amendments and additions to the Labor Code of the Republic of Armenia ", after which the parties submitted their views.
According to the presented changes the maximum number of overtime working hours, which is 180 hours per year, and the right to annual additional leave for workers with irregular working hours were proposed to be considered null and void. A matter of special breaks, additional annual leave, the establishment of the size of bonuses for overtime and night work, as well as for the implementation of hard and harmful, especially hard and especially harmful work and their benefits must be submitted to the consideration of the parties . The size of the above mentioned allowances for civil workers and the order of their payment will be determined by the RA Government, thus unequal conditions will be created for workers in the state and nonstate sectors.
Taking into consideration the fact that the draft law will only worsen the legal status of workers and that the proposed changes are in contrary to the RA Constitution, the provisions of the revised European Social Charter, the provisions of the RA labour legislation the representatives of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia voted against the adoption of these changes and amendments to the Labor Code of the RA.
