On October 5, after long negotiations, the National Tripartite Collective Agreement was signed by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, the President of the Confederation of Trade Unions and the President of the Employers’ Association of Armenia. As a result of the agreement, a Republican Tripartite commission, consisting of representatives of the three parties of agreement will be formed to ensure its implementation and enforcement. The meetings of the commission must happen at least once in every quarter. The Agreement contains various provisions related to labor, social and economic rights and norms, some of which can be highlighted:
- The parties agree to support the establishment and development of trade unions, to promote the development of social partnership
- The parties must to submit the draft bills concerning labor legislation, labor rights and norms related to employees interests to the opinion of the Republican Tripartite Commission before their adoption.
- In order to ensure decent work, the parties must to support the development and implementation of culture the practice of collective bargaining.
An Action Plan for the implementation of Agreement has to be developed in near future.
It should be noted, that the previous National Tripartite Collective agreement was signed in 2015 for a period of three years, then its term was extended for another year.
After the revolution, it was anticipated that we will have more revolutionary process of social dialogue – improved negotiations, improved Agreement. In reality, however, the negotiation process was long and inefficient, as a result of which, instead of improving the Agreement, we had to fight for at least preserving the previous Agreement’s text and not making it worse. We regret that the process of signing the agreement was not ceremonial, and was not by done by the three parties coming together, be it physical or at least online. Probably the reason for that was the quarantine and martial law.
The full copy of the Agreement is available here.