The employees of Armenia’s largest taxpayer strike, 3 February 2025

...[E]mployees of the Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC) began a strike in demand of better working conditions and pay. The company and its trade union have claimed the strike was held ‘in violation of the labour legislation’ and the strikers’ demands were ‘unrealistic’.

The company and union issued a joint statement, claiming that the employees made ‘an ultimatum demand’ for the wage increase, and had ‘sabotaged the working process’ by initiating the strike. As a result, ‘the company and the remaining employees have suffered significant material damage’, the statement read.

‘The ZCMC LLC Trade Union does not consider these actions to be a strike and does not support them, deeming them illegal’, read the statement...

On Saturday, the Union of Miners and Metallurgists of Armenia issued a statement, calling on the strikers ‘to present their demands legally, without disrupting the normal operation of the company’...

Epress reported that ‘all ore mines and processing factories are halted’, and as of Sunday morning, the strikers ‘blocked the exit for trucks carrying finished metal concentrate to Yerevan’...

According to RFE/RL, the strikers and the factory’s management had around a two hour meeting...mediated by Kajaran Mayor Manvel Paramazyan, ‘but no constructive dialogue was achieved’.

Paramazyan told RFE/RL that the company was inclined to raise wages by 20%, which the employees did not agree with.

In their statement, Zangezur Combine noted that the average salary in the Syunik region, where the mine was located, ‘is the second highest after the capital, thanks to the industry, mainly the Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC)’...