03 January 2011, 23:00
About 300 employees of Armenian Pension Fund lose their jobs
On December 29, the Government of Armenia signed an agreement with the Company "AiPost", under which pensions will be paid out at post offices. This caused discontent among hundreds of employees of the Pension Fund, who lost their jobs as a result of such arrangements.
As noted by the government, this innovation was introduced for the convenience of pensioners. According to experts, possibly, pensioners will be happy; however, the problem is that several hundreds of employees of the Pension Fund of Armenia, who had been previously responsible for payment of pensions, lost their jobs.
On December 30, several dozens of them held a rally under the walls of the Armenian Government in protest against their own dismissal.
According to former employees of the Fund, the procedure of their dismissal as prescribed by the labour legislation was breached. As noted by a woman-participant of the rally, people "were thrown out like hungry dogs."
In particular, they say that they were warned about dismissal only two weeks in advance, although the law prescribes to do it two months before the supposed dismissal, the "News Armenia" writes.
Meanwhile, according to Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisyan, who was holding a sitting during the rally, the laid-off employees had been offered employment in the "AiPost" Company. However, the dismissed employees say that the attestation procedure at employment leaves them no chance to be recruited; therefore, they are not inclined to trust the words of the Prime Minister, the "PanARMENIAN.Net" reports.
