Employees of the Company RMG Leave Trade Union – Are they oppressed or not?

Natia Gogolashvili

On February 26, representatives of the Trade Union of Metallurgy, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers met representatives of the nongovernmental organizations and diplomatic corps. The main topic of the discussion was recent developments in the Company RMG. More precisely, they spoke about the facts of oppression, persecution and coercion against Trade Union members by the Company. 

According to the representatives of the Trade Union [TU], about 1000 members of the Trade Union of the Metallurgy, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers, initial trade union of the JSC RMG Cooper and Ltd RMG Gold have been complaining about discrimination from the employer Company RMG who became victims of the oppression that contain signs of criminal offense. 

On March 23, 2014 an agreement was signed between the Company RMG’s administration and the employee’s representation, and it finished 40-day strike of the company workers.  The agreement was result of the long-term mediation that was conducted by the mediator appointed by the special order of the Prime Minister. Expert Roger Lecure of the International Labor Organization also observed the process. 

Chairman of the Georgian Trade Union of Metallurgy, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers Tamaz Dolaberidze said the company started to ignore the taken responsibilities from the very first week. He also added that a parity commission, which should have to resolve the labor arguments, was not established. 

“No draft collective agreement was discussed since that time. After this discussion, it was necessary to harmonize the positions of the company and employees within two months, and the parties had to present their opinions about the collective agreements after that two months period. Misbalance in salary portions was not resolved either. The issue of increase in salaries was not discussed either. The employees did not receive special uniforms and protection instruments. Besides, the company does not employ people from the reserve list. The point is that during last year strike about 150 people were sacked from job; the company named economical crisis to be the main reason of their dismissal. However, we believe it was discriminative persecution and punishment for the protest strikes. As a result of negotiations 80 workers were restored to their working places but other 44 people have appealed the court. An agreement was signed after their dismissal according to which a reserve list was to be created. According to the same agreement, as soon as the company resumed full functioning and have vacant places, they should first hire the people from the reserve list. However, it must be noted that mostly the company hires new and inexperienced people,” Tamaz Dolaberidze said.

In reply to that, the Company RMG spread special statement which reads that main requirements in the agreement were already executed. “In response to the slander statement of Tamaz Dolaberidze, who claims that the company does not implement the mediation agreement requirements, we would like to note that the main requirements in the agreement were already implemented. As for other obligations, we are finalizing our work in that direction too,” the statement reads.

Chairman of the Trade Union at the RMG Gold Joni Rtveladze also speaks about the violation of the agreement and says that the company implemented only small part of it. “We signed an agreement with the company and they implemented only small part of its requirements. We bothered them every day and asked whether they were going to implement their responsibilities and demanded them to show concrete action plan; however they did not have clear answers and said they were calculating,” Joni Rtveladze said.

According to Rtveladze, there are no security norms on working places; workers mostly do not receive special uniforms. All these issues were on the agenda of to-do tasks according to the agreement.

“There are people who walk only from their working rooms to the cars but despite that they received special uniforms. As for people, who work in the carriers, they have not received them. There were about 400 special uniforms and about 100 of them were distributed among engineers and technical personnel. It is noteworthy that one person was written twice on the list, which was assigned to us by the company; there are people who do not need the uniforms at all. The issue is that after the strike, there was controversy between the workers and engineer-technical personnel. So, they try to oppress the workers as much as possible,” Joni Rtveladze said.  

According to him, the oppression on the workers has increased for the past two weeks. He said the Company RMG representatives threaten the TU members with firing.

“The oppression is increasing everyday; it has intensified for the past 15 days. Heads of almost every district are involved in this process. They increase aggression against those workers, who did not obey their orders immediately; they are threatened with firing. People, who leave the TU, do not meet me. They have to sign the preliminarily prepared forms, whose addressee is the chief financial unit. The filled in forms say that the applicant no longer wishes to pay the TU membership and leave it. It is interesting whether this issue is within the competence of the financial unit. In general, application on joining or leaving the trade union should be sent to me, I resolute it and then forward it to the financial unit. However, now they changed the procedures. It is a pity that people do it under force. When they sign the application forms, they leave the room and then call us with apologies; they feel very insulted,” Joni Rtveladze said.

According to Rtveladze, the workers, who were forced to the sign the application on leaving the TU, avoid contact with media because they are afraid to lose job. According to the chairman of the TU at the RMG Gold, the workers are threatened not only with their firing but with the dismissal of their employed family members too.

On February 27, the Company RMG responded to the accusations of the TU members and blamed them in dissemination of slandering information.

“The company administration declares with full responsibility that it has never interfered in the activities of the trade union and is ready to continue close cooperation with the workers in future too to improve their working conditions. As for leaving the TU, according to the company administration’s information, one of the reasons of the workers’ decision was their mistrust to the leaders of the trade unions and unrealized promises, also their doubts about the membership fees to the TU and other financial intransparency and unreasonable expenditure of funds; the workers, who had left the TU, have complained about these issues several times,” the statement of the RMG reads.

RMG employee Gia Mushkudiani said the workers massively left the Trade Unions voluntarily and there was no oppression on them. He made statement about it during the press-conference in the press-club of the news agency Pirveli on February 27. 

“People do not leave the TU because of the oppression on them. How can one make 3000 employees to leave the TU? It is false. People are surprised for what we paid so much money. The people created the trade union but they did not assist the people at all,” Gia Mushkudiani said.

Electricity-welder at the RMG Cooper Zaza Khmaladze also spoke about no perspectives for staying in the TU at the press-conference. He said it was useless to stay in the TU and pay money for membership.

“We do not see any perspectives from the Trade Union and could not get their support. The only result we had was division of the workers. They divided friendly team into two camps. So, we all decided to quit the TU,” Zaza Khmaladze said.

He also doubts that National Movement is hiding behind the TU. “United National Movement is standing behind Irakli Petriashvili, Tamaz Dolaberidze and Joni Rtveladze. Everything is within their interests.”

Deputy chairman of the Trade Union Confederation Gocha Aleksandria also spoke about political interests. He said interests of concrete political power are observed in this process.

“After the strike finished, some personnel changes happened in the company management. The new administration represents the concrete political power, who are not independent people, though the company is a private entity. When in September, 2014 one meeting was organized almost under force Nika Karitchashvili was presented to Mr. Tengiz and Mr. Jondi, who is now PR manager in the company; he was introduced as a representative of the Georgian Dream. We have doubt that political elements involve this process. I can also name Soso Bibilashvili, who introduced himself to the people as the state representative. When we inquired about this person, we found out that he worked for the MIA in the past,” Gocha Aleksandria said.

Representatives of the Trade Union of Metallurgy, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers state that they have several confirmed facts when workers were under oppression and it is enough ground for them to appeal to the prosecutor’s office and request criminal liability against the people participating in this discriminative process.