Trade Unions to Hold Mass-Scale Action

Jimsher Rekhviashvili, Radio Liberty

Georgian Trade Unions is continuing actions for the support of the metallurgists detained on September 15th. On September 26th, the activists and representatives of civil society gathered in Tbilisi and Kutaisi and requested the protection of right of the employees and normal work conditions.

Solidarity actions which are going to be held as a response of the disruption of actions of metallurgists and their detention will end by a mass-scale protest action on October 1st.

The members of the Georgian Unions gathered in front of the Ministry of Economics and Sustainable Development in Tbilisi. “Hercules – Source of Slavery!”, “Solidarity to Metallurgists!”, “Restore Illegally Detained People!” – The activis stood at the stairs of the Ministry building with these kinds of posters. The head of the Trade Unions of Georgian Transportation Lavrenti Alania addressed the participants:

“We chose the Ministry of Economics because this is the Ministry which chooses these “great” investors who do not know how to talk and use police force. Everybody should understand that there should be no slave labor in Georgia.”

Lavrenti Alania states that the slave labor is the situation when the rights of the employees are completely violated and instead of changing the situation, the workers are raided and arrested:

“We are not requesting any political post or gain! We just want the social justice, changing the labor code, dialogue to cooperation and etc…”

Hercules employees who requested the return of the colleagues and improvement of work conditions had similar requests.

However, the dialogue between the Hercules workers and the representatives of the governing company GeoSteel did not work out. One of the directors Robert Tomaradze announced the position of the factory leadership and stated that all the requests of the workers are groundless: “We have a bathroom, 9 showers – with hot and cold water. They are saying that we do not have a toilet. Who can imagine that the factory has been working for two years without a toilet? This is a lie. The water is provided by the schedule, but we carry it from the well and the tank.”

The protest rally of the metallurgists was not stopped due to these arguments of the director. According to the head of the Trade Union of metallurgists, miners and chemists Tamaz Dolaberidze, the action was stopped by violence – the detained metallurgists were made to refuse to participate in the protest actions. Three of them were sentenced to ten-day imprisonment.

“The action had certain results. For last three days they have been working on the renovation of toilet, bathroom and checkroom. They gave out new special clothing. The director promised the workers to increase their salaries. However, it is also important the constitutional right has been violated. All who came back to the work were made to write testimonies that they will no longer continue working for the Trade Unions,” – stated Tamaz Dolaberidze in Tbilisi, in front of the Ministry of Economics.

On September 26th another action was held in Kutaisi where approximately 30 representatives of NGOs gathered. According to the organizers of the solidarity action, a sum-up action is going to be held on October 1st, the first Saturday of October which has been announced to be a labor day of the Trade Unions.