Address of Human Rights Center about ongoing process in the Public Broadcasting

HRC is studying facts of alleged violation of labor rights of the employees of the Georgian Public Broadcasting in connection with the offered amendments in the labor contracts from the side of the GPB.

 

According to the Human Rights Center’s assessment, the GPB offered the labor contracts to the employees, where only the interests of the employer are considered, while the rights of the employees are not respected in accordance to the Georgian legislation and international standards.

The offered contracts completely change the working schedule for the employees, which aims to change previous working regime into hourly-schedule and the salaries will be paid in accordance to the implemented job. The new contracts offer daily reimbursement for concrete job but it does not specify minimal amount of obligatory working days that means the employees may not receive working hours at all. Considering these circumstances, we have well-grounded doubt that this concrete proposal is equal to dismissal from job. Offering similar amendments in the labor contracts aims to create stressful working environment in the GPB that disregards labor rights of the employees.

HRC stresses out the unverified criteria for the selection of employees. It is essential that the management elaborated clear and impartial arguments to ensure transparent and well-grounded decision-making process. 

It is worth to mention the part of the contract regulating the dismissal of employees, which refers to the Article 37 Part 1 – “n” of the Labor Code of Georgia. This part of the contract is vague and does not clarify concrete grounds of dismissal that allows the employer to act selfishly, according to his/her personal views. 

It is significant, that the Board of Trustees actively participated in the process to impartially evaluate the labor policy of the GPB, state of labor rights of the employees and compliance of the GPB’s decision with the national legislation. 

HRC calls on the GPB:

• to create fair labor environment for the employees, where labor relations will relay upon the balanced labor rights between the employer and employees;
• to ensure participation of public trade union in the process and suspend the optimization process until the Trade Union gets involved in the process in order to avoid unilateral and ungrounded decisions;
• to conduct dialogue with the employees for the creation of fair labor conditions and pass just decision in due respect to the needs and rights of the employees.

Human Rights Center