ENA staff protests against accumulative pension scheme

Employees of Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) Company gathered today outside the company’s administrative building, demanding answers to their questions. In particular, they want to know why deductions were made from their salaries and where this money is.

The spokeswoman for ENA Natalia Sarjanian spoke to the protesters. She asked them to wait until 4:00 pm when a meeting will be held and they together with employees arriving from regions will receive answers.

In the words of N. Sarjanian, the company has fulfilled the law’s requirement. In response, one of the members of ‘I’m against compulsory accumulative pension system’ (Dem.am) civil initiative, lawyer Gevorg Gorgisian presented the grounds, according to which ENA Company violated its employees’ right.

Employees of a number of companies have recently held protests. They demand that employers implement the Constitutional Court’s decision. Among the protesters have been employees of the Yerevan Metro after Karen Demirchian and the South Caucasus Railway CJSC, as well as creative staff of the Spendiarian National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

The compulsory accumulative pension system was introduced in Armenia on January 1, 2014. Under the new Law on Accumulative Pensions, citizens born after 1974 have to pay 5% of salary to special accumulative funds, and another 5% will be paid by the state.

Four factions of the Armenian parliament – Prosperous Armenia (BHK), ARF-Dashnaktsutyun, Armenian National Congress (HAK), and Heritage factions are opposed to the compulsory component’s introduction. They applied to Armenia’s Constitutional Court, asking it to recognize the new law as unconstitutional.

The Constitutional Court on January 24 suspended Article 76 part 3 and Article 86 of the Law on Accumulative Pensions pending the court decision. The court hearing is scheduled for March 28, 2014.