The former “HyeFilm” film studio has signed contracts with its workers. According to the requirements of the new ownership’s contract, the new owner has kept their positions and has agreed to pay each worker the minimum of 50 thousand drams each month. The workers, in their turn, have signed the ten page contracts printed in Armenian and English.
Many have signed the contracts without reading it, thinking that it doesn’t matter if they read it or not; there is not going to be film production anytime soon anyway. “We’ll sign and see what happens later,” said one of the workers. The contracts, which have been signed by 167 workers, need to be carefully studied because there are some points which turn it into a “volunteer slavery” contract.
“CS Films” joint-stock company obligates its workers to go along with the “rules and regulations of the company” and it doesn’t take into consideration the Armenian legislation.
If we put aside the points about copyrights and intellectual rights (according to which no specialist will not have the right to get a surplus in salary or a certificate, even if the film produced with his or her help has reached international fame), which are so hard to understand, we need to concentrate on the job requirements stated in the contract. The company has the right to “check the process and quality of work completed by the worker at any given time and evaluate his job periodically.” This means that the company can evaluate the work at any second, and if he is not satisfied or considers the work done as low quality, the owner can liquidize the contract. The contract can also be liquidized when the worker goes against the “Secrecy” clause stated in the contract. Basically, the company can falsely consider “giving out professional, business, bank and other secret information” as a violation. It is very easy to give out “professional and business related secrets” because the company can consider any kind of information as secret and can accuse the worker for not keeping that secret at any given time.
There is no doubt that the workers who have signed that contract have dug a hole for themselves because by signing that contract, they don’t have the right to “take advantage of any clause stated in the contract in order to evade responsibilities stated in the contract.” It will not be possible to evade anything even if the working conditions and resources don’t satisfy them. If any disagreements come up between the worker and the company, the worker will lose immediately because nobody has forced that worker to sign the contract. If the worker does not agree with the employee, he can not appeal to the court and can not solve the debate according to Armenian legislation. The contract makes them obligated to appeal to the court that plays a role in between. That is what is stated in the clause titled “Order of debate solution”. In case any debates take place, then the Armenian work legislation will not be used to defend the film studio workers because they have already voluntarily agreed to go along with appealing to the court that serves as an arbitration. The contract proposes “settling the debate with the help of one and only one arbitrary judge-in the city of Yerevan and apply the Rules of the court of arbitration of America.” However, rarely anyone knows about the rules and regulations of the court of arbitration in America.
It is impossible to evade work as long as the court of arbitration has not reached its verdict. According to the contract, the worker “will work during the 180 days after appealing to the court.” The company will not allow injured workers or workers who don’t want to work to leave just like that because these conditions are really slavery conditions. However, these conditions are not final due to the fact that “CS Films” company gives itself an opportunity to change certain clauses in the contract and this is stated in the end. The worker, who is totally uninformed, must accept those changes because he or she has signed under the following statement: “I have read and understood the rules and regulations for the worker and I agree with the clauses which can be changed from time to time by the employer.” Thus, there is no mutual agreement, but rather it is based on the employer’s desire.