Yerevan bus station (Armine Avetisyan /OC Media)
Low pay and high unemployment have led many Armenian women to seek work beyond the country’s borders. Despite fears of trafficking, often abusive working conditions, and a closed border with Turkey, the allure of higher salaries have led thousands to leave Armenia, mainly to Russia and even Turkey — a country many consider an ‘enemy land’.
Tevdore Natsabidze, a labourer at the railway tunnel construction site, walks to work. Tevdore was one of roughly fifty striking employees accusing the construction company of violating labour safety rules (Luka Pertaia /OC Media)
Railway construction in central Georgia is a key part of ambitious plans to modernise Georgia’s infrastructure. Despite warnings from trade unions and official inspectors, life for the workers remains a ‘living hell’.
(Armine Avetisyan /Ampop)
One in five workers in Armenia is employed in informal sector, many of them in agriculture. Lack of employment contracts often subjects them to Labour Code violations by employers.
Protest against Fresco (Sopho Aptsiauri /OC Media)
With 24-hour shifts, collective responsibility, and heavy surveillance, employees of Georgian supermarkets complain of being exploited. While supermarket owners justify the hard working conditions with a need to improve customer service, trade unions say the problem lies in a lack of regulations. [Read more…]
The Ministry of Labor and Social Development of Abkhazia (/Sputnik Abkhazia)
A new Labour Code came into force in Abkhazia in January 2017, which on paper, significantly expands the rights of workers. But the law has limitations, and not all workers know their rights.
The largest supermarket chain in Armenia — Yerevan City — belongs to Republican Party MP Samvel Aleksanyan (David Stepanyan /OC Media)
With murky boundaries between the authorities and big supermarket chains in Armenia, their government linked owners enjoy a degree of impunity. This has and does lead to fear, intimidation, and exploitation of workers, and even voter fraud. [Read more…]
A beach in Sukhum (Dominik K. Cagara/ Archive)
Many in Abkhazia have lamented the failure of this year’s tourist season, connecting it directly to rising levels of crime. The usual problems were compounded by high profile attacks on tourists and an explosion at an ammunition depot which left two tourists dead.
(Ahmed Mukhtar/OC Media)
Two years after the twice devaluation of the manat and three years after world oil prices plummeted, official statistics in Azerbaijan suggest a rosy picture of the economy. Meanwhile, local companies continue to shut down, each day adding more people to the country’s army of unemployed.
Faced with staggering unemployment and unscrupulous employers, young people in Armenia, including graduates, are forced to work obscene hours for low (or no) pay to get a foot through the door in the country’s labour market.
‘We do not sell apricots for cheaper than ֏500 ($1) per kilogramme’ (David Stepanyan/OC Media)
Armenia’s apricot farmers have had a bountiful season, but are unable to enjoy the fruits of their labour. They say that Spayka, an exporter with alleged connections to the president’s son-in-law, has captured the market — and is abusing its misbegotten power.