The Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia, which unites 18 branch republican trade unions, that includes 587 trade unions, numbering about 200 thousand members, expresses its concern in connection with the project of the Council of Elders of Yerevan to increase fares in public transport in Yerevan, which will certainly have heavy social consequences for various groups of the population of the capital.
  According to the latest data of the RA Statistical Committee, 24.8% of the RA population are considered poor. Among the poor there are also working people who, even when working, cannot provide themselves and their family members with the minimum necessities of life. The increase in public transport fares will have a negative impact on the income of a significant part of the workers, since the requirement of Article 182 of the RA Labor Code - "Indexation of wages shall be carried out in accordance with the procedure established by the legislation of the Republic of Armenia" is not applied in the Republic of Armenia.
The RA Law "On the Minimum Consumer Basket and the Minimum Consumer Budget" adopted in 2004 does not apply, according to which the size of the minimum consumer budget should be the basis for determining the minimum salary, pensions, scholarships, as well as allowances and other social payments.
  According to the latest data of the Statistical Committee of RA, out of 741,571 employees of RA, 521,318 work in Yerevan, therefore, a significant part of them use public transport
It is obvious that after the changes that occurred in the public transport system of Yerevan, public transport still does not provide minimally satisfactory quality of service to citizens. The cost of transport should be set in such a way as to stimulate the refusal of private transport and the use of city transport, taking into account that one of the goals of the reform of the transport network is also to relieve the capital from private transport.
Vehicles and their network should be improved due to taxes paid by taxpayers. Placing an additional burden on the shoulders of the country's population will lead to the emergence of additional social tension among citizens, which is fraught with unpredictable consequences.
Until the implementation of the above-mentioned legal acts and the improvement of the quality of public transport services in Yerevan and the improvement of the transport network, we consider it unacceptable to increase the fares on the capital's public transport.
Taking into account the above, the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia calls on the Council of Elders of Yerevan to refrain from raising fares for public transport in the capital.

      President of the Confederation of  Trade Unions of Armenia
     Elen Manaseryan