Nuke plant director terminates employment contracts
The administration of the Metsamor nuclear power plant began accepting on job termination requests from its employees after failing to ensure pay rises demanded by them.
"This will lead to the final shutdown of the plant," a plant employee told A1+ today.
Earlier in the day, plant director Gagik Markosyan held negotiations with workers and reportedly reached a compromise agreement with them. Markosyan reportedly agreed to raise the wages by 20 and 30 percent.
However, the Armenian Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources vetoed the deal, offering to raise the wages by 10 percent. This forced the indignant workers to terminate their work contracts.
Markosyan is said to have broken part of the contracts. We were informed that another 500 workers have joined the protesters in the morning threatening the plant administration with unprecedented walkout.
Lusine Harutiunyan, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, said that discussions on the issue are continuing but she did not elaborate.
Both Markosyan and the ministry said earlier that the mass resignations would not affect Metsamor's operational safety.
