Armenia's NPP may face lack of personnel, if salaries are not reviewed

Armenia’s Nuclear Power Plant is set to face a shortage of personnel after 158 of its employees submitted resignation letters on September 20 over their salaries.

The employees submitted the letters after receiving no response to their request sent a month earlier to the NPP’s management, Armenia’s president and the minister of energy and natural resources.

In the request they had asked to review their salaries against the backdrop of inflation, the recent hike in prices.

Speaking to Tert.am, Lusine Harutyunyan, the spokesperson of the minister of energy and natural resources, said that their letters are at the ministry and that the ministry will inform about the results of their reviewing.

Since September 5 Armenia’s NPP is currently under a 46-day planned renovation.

Asked what is being done to tackle the issue, given the personnel shortage is a component of the NPP’s security, Suren Amanyan, the head of the staff of the State Committee of Nuclear Security at the government, said that it is the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources that deals with the issue.

He also said that the Committee is dealing only with technical security issues.

Armenia’s Labor Law on collective contracts (Article 49) stipulates that the salaries of holders of collective contracts is defined, taking account the level of inflation and rise in prices.

Yura Dolinyan, President of NPP’s trade union, said that employees of the NPP have signed collective contracts which, however, do not have mechanisms that regulate the amount of salaries on basis of inflation and rises in prices.

The Armenian government is acting as an employer in those under those contracts.