YEREVAN. – About two dozen employees of the Armenian capital city Yerevan Metropolitan subway system gathered nearby the Metropolitan main administration building, on Wednesday morning, to protest the mandatory funded pension plan. (PHOTO)

“We demand that they suspend this law and not deduct 5 percent from our salaries. We will protest against this law, but we will not yet go on strike,” subway train conductor Andranik Gevorgyan said.        

“We have no confidence. The government might change and our money would perish, [and] we might not get [it back],” assistant conductor Gevorg Hovhannisyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.    

Members from the “I am against” civil movement, which is against the new pension reform in Armenia, also came to support the protesting Metropolitan employees. 

The Metropolitan workers also handed a letter of complaint to their management.   

The new funded pension plan, which formally came into force in Armenia on January 1, 2014, is mandatory for those born in and after 1974 and voluntary for those born before 1974. In line with this plan, 5 to 10 percent of the monthly salaries in Armenia will be deducted and mandatorily be allocated to cumulative pension funds; the latter will be reimbursed as pensions once a person turns 63 years old.      

On January 24, however, the Constitutional Court decided to suspend the execution of some components in the Law on Funded Pensions pending the hearing—on March 28—of the petition submitted by the four non-ruling-coalition parliamentary forces—the Armenian National Congress, Prosperous Armenia, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, and Heritage—, and into the constitutionality of the several articles of the law.

Notwithstanding this, some employers already are deducting the mandatory pension payment from the salaries of their employees.    

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am