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Social programs and promises of the political parties

October 11, 2016
 
Lana Giorgidze

On October 8, 2016 more than 200 parties were registered for the Parliamentary Elections. They presented election programs to voters. The South-East European Partnership Initiative published a research – Social Programs and Promises of the Political Parties, which evaluated election programs of several political parties. 

The South-East European Partnership Initiative the social programs of the Georgian Dream, the United National Movement, the Republican Party, the National Forum, the Free Democrats, the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia, the Burjanadze-Democratic Movement, the Paata Burtchuladze –State for People and the Labor Party.
 
Humanrights.ge spoke with Gocha Aleksandria, one of the authors of the research, who works for the Syndicate of Georgia, and was invited to the research as an independent researcher. Gocha Aleksandria emphasized couple of important issues.

“The project, which aimed to analyze employment and social policy of the election  programs, was implemented with financial support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation,” Gocha Aleksandria noted. 

Social and employment policy, as important segment of the political parties election programs

- The employment policy is very important and all political parties realized it. According to the researches of local or international organizations, the employment is number one problem for years, poverty, territorial integrity and others come next. The parties realized they have to offer employment to voters, which is very good. Social policy comes next, which was taken into account by all parties, but it is important to realize what kind of working places and what terms were offered to voters. 

None of the political parties mentioned 2005 European Social Charter ratified by Georgia, which is crucial document for us. None of the parties mentioned UN’s Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which is also ratified by Georgia. I think, when the political party wants to bring positive change, it shall have standard. Since they did not mention similar documents at all, it shows their approach is non-systemic. 

It seems the political parties compete in screaming out the numbers, how many people “will be employed”. It is unclear when they will employ people. Probably, they mean next 4 years. The ruling party declared they will create 200 000 working places, but they do not specify the terms. However, the more important than terms is that if they give working places to 200 000, by the end of 2020 only 40 000 capable people will remain unemployed, which means that the unemployment’s rate will be 2,5%, while today it is 12%. Considering it, it is simply impossible to create 200 000 working places. Nothing similar happened even in Japan or Germany, when they were on the top of their economic development. 

The political parties focus on infrastructural projects and tourism in terms of employment. Infrastructural projects, which imply construction of bridges and roads, are exhausting resource and tourism is seasonal. We need stable employment programs, which should be connected with industrial development. 

Industrial Development

- None of the parties mentioned stable employment programs. It is true, the ruling party mentioned industrial development, but did not explain how. None of the parties have plans to create new factories. They do not talk about development of metallurgical and plastic industries. Only the ruling party mentioned the vision of development of the Tkibuli Factory in the program. We do not see the stable thread of creation working places in the election programs of the political parties. 

Informally employed people

- There are approximately 250 000 informally employed people in the country, excluding the people employed in the agriculture. Those people do not pay taxes. Their working conditions are terrible. The political parties do not have plans about them. 

Labor Rights

- None of the parties had labor rights emphasized in the election programs. We did not encounter the chapter about labor security and rights in the programs, consequently, we, the authors of the research, decided to find couple of key words in the election programs of the political parties through Word’s search system, the words are: labor rights/employers rights, labor security/secure labor, labor inspection, honorable labor, fair labor conditions, labor code, labor legislation, social dialogue. The research showed the Georgian Dream mentioned labor rights only once and once fair labor conditions, none of the other terms were used. Clearly right-wing political party, the Republicans mentioned labor rights twice, labor code once, social dialogue twice. All the other parties did not use any of the terms. Whilst every month somebody is injured in working place and the strikes are held and the government is forced to apologize permanently. Having this background, the parties even did not mention labor rights and labor security, do not say anything about special chapter to that problems. 

All parties underlined attraction of investments in their programs and they believe the reinforcement of the labor law creates obstacles to their main objective - attraction of investments, because one of the tricks to attract investment is to offer cheap manpower. While comparing two issues – economic development or labor rights, they choose economic development, which is a big mistake. Those topics are not separated in any developed countries; on the contrary, they support each other. 

The Republican Party mentioned in the election program that we should not attract investments at the expense of cheap manpower; they believe, we have to pay attention to people’s qualification. Other parties did not touch the topic. We saw the intended avoidance of certain topics by the political parties, or they are not informed. The research of election programs showed none of the political parties admitted scope of negative influence of labor security and grave labor conditions on the country’s economy.

Recommendations to the political parties

- In the process of elaboration of social policy and employment strategy, the parties shall pay more attention to successful international experience, binding international standards and agreements for the country. All spheres and segments shall be taken into account in the election programs, so that the approach shall be comprehensive in order to avoid discrimination. 

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