ARMENIA LAW AND PRACTICE Contributed by: Aram Orbelyan, Narine Beglaryan, Artur Hovhannisyan, Lilit Karapetyan, Sarkis Knyazyan and Shushanik Stepanyan, Concern Dialog
the employer fails to notify the employee of the termination of an employment contract that was originally agreed upon for a specific period, and the parties also do not sign the appropriate indi - vidual legal act to terminate such a contract, and the employment relationship does not continue in practice, then in such cases, the law can inter - vene to legally terminate the contract. The Labour Code provides an exhaustive list of reasons that entitle an employer to terminate an employment contract. This implies that an employee cannot be dismissed by the employer for any arbitrary reason. The grounds for termi - nation specified in the Labour Code are as fol - lows: • in the case of: (a) the liquidation of a company (termination of the activity of an individual entrepre - neur); (b) reduction in workforce or positions result - ing from changes in workload, economic or technological conditions, work organi - sation, or production-related needs; (c) non-compliance of the employee with the position held or the work performed; (d) reinstatement of the employee at their previous job; (e) periodic non-fulfilment by an employee (without a valid reason) of the duties as - signed to them by an employment con - tract or internal regulations; (f) loss of trust in the employee; (g) the employee’s long-term incapacity for work (if the employee has been tem - porarily incapacitated for more than six consecutive months or for more than 180 days within the last twelve months, excluding days of maternity leave); (h) an employee’s refusal or evasion of man - datory medical examinations; and
(i) the residence status of a foreign worker being recognised as invalid; • if the employee: (a) is in the workplace under the influence of alcohol, narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances; (b) fails to show up for work for no valid rea - son during the entire working day; and (c) is excluded from work for more than ten consecutive working days or more than 20 working days during the previous three months because of their failure to submit the necessary documents required to attend work during isolation declared in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Labour Code, the employer is obliged to give notification prior to dismissal to employees in cases specified by the Labour Code. For example, when the employment con - tract is terminated due to the liquidation of the company or a reduction in the staff, the employ - er must provide employees with two months of prior notice. According to the Labour Code, it is possible for an employer to provide pay in lieu of notice, which is calculated by multiplying the employ - ee’s average daily salary by each day of notice. 4.5 Employee Representations The Labour Code allows the establishment of employees’ representatives, such as a trade union or works council elected by the assembly (conference) of workers. Apart from that, the Law on Trade Unions regulates and guarantees the activities of trade unions. A works council is elected if the organisation does not have a trade union (or any trade unions) or if any existing trade unions do not unite more than half of the organisation’s employees. At the
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