Saturday, May 04, 2002

Two days ago was to be payday for the workers and material providers for the wine factory, but the money didn�t seem to come.

Today I heard they brought money, so I went to my contractor�s house to see if the director sent my money with my contactor as he had in the past. My contactor told me that only the workers got paid, but not the suppliers.

My contactor was not at all happy with what he received for the work he has done so far. Not only was it much less than what he was expecting, but they did it in such a way to make it appear that the factory was keeping its end of the deal, paying the skilled labor 5,000 dram a day. The way they did this was they counted all the work that was done using their measuring-tape, which shows much less than what was actually done. Then from that total they divided it by 5,000 dram, giving them the number of days they feel the works worked. The fact remains in the case of my contractor, that he started to work on March 20th. They tallied up everything on April 25th. From the 20th of March to the 25th of April, my contractor worked 32 days (which BTW April 24th was a work day at the factory). My contractor�s gross pay was 110,000 dram and was counted as 22 days of work.

According to my contactor, one of the owners of the factory was there to pass out the money and he tried to calm the workers down by making promises to pay them next month more to make up for the shortage. My contractor and the other workers didn�t buy any of what he was saying and not that I know this guy personally, but if his promises are a reflection of what I was promised, they are nothing but empty words.

I guess I�ll go visit the director of the factory tomorrow to see what happened to my share and let him know that I will take appropriate measures to collect for me and the workers who have been effectively taken advantage of if he does not make good. This should be a good lesson for everyone on how to assert your rights and what you are allowed to do in a �democracy�.

Well I�m off to dinner at my contractor�s house. I went to Stepanagert today and brought back with me a couple of cows heads and feet. We are having tongue tonight. Khash will be in the next couple of days!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment