18 drivers of public transport have been dismissed from their jobs
The press secretary of Yerevan Municipality, Hayk Kostanyan, announced that 18 public transport drivers have already been dismissed due to today’s strikes in the capital. As a result of the strike, many passengers were unable to reach their destinations from various stops. The municipality does not classify this action as a strike but as blackmail, emphasizing that drivers were obligated to notify about the strike 14 days in advance.
Since November 1, drivers could no longer collect passenger fares independently. Following this change, the municipality stated that the shadow economy has decreased.
Before the November 1 decision, an average of 30-31 million AMD was collected on weekdays, now, we have reached the 35 million mark. On weekends, instead of the previous 18 million, we are collecting around 23 million. I want to make it very clear that this increase in revenue is not because more people are using public transport. It is simply because the money that used to go into various people’s pockets, including drivers, no longer does, – stated Suren Grigoryan during a press conference with journalists.
The drivers themselves admitted today that before the transition to the new system, they were earning additional money daily. In this context, they also addressed the final stops of buses, referred to as “kanets,” noting that even basic hygiene conditions are lacking there. Restrooms are either unavailable or require payment for use.
We used to work overtime back then as well, but since we were receiving cash directly, we didn’t raise this issue, we managed the other matters ourselves, from cleaning the bus to dealing with restroom issues. With cash-based work, drivers would earn an additional 4,000–5,000 AMD per day on average.
This means that each driver, in addition to their regular salary, was able to earn an extra 60,000 to 75,000 AMD over 15 days of driving.