Labor Trafficking in Batumi

Tamta Talakvadze

About 20 employees of the constraction company Ltd. Kristali who were cheated by the company administration demand that the administration immediately pay them their salaries.

The employees say the company owes them more than 9,000 GEL- the arrears of 8 months. They were to be paid 42 GEL for the construction of one cubic meter of the floor in the building.They constructed 250 cubic meters.

Davit Surmanidze, worker: The terms of work were satisfactory and I agreed to work. We were paid according to the amount of work we did. There was much work to do. I took a credit from the bank because I had hoped I would received the money. In the end they left us with nothing. Now I have serious problems with the bank. Interests add up on my credit every day. I sold a cow to cover a part of the debt. I ask the administration for compensation together with the arrears. They have to compensate the money I had to pay the bank because I did not start paying the credit on time because of them.

Jemal Gvazava, worker: “I relied on this job. They left me with nothing. I could not even pay my child’s tuition fee. I heard they did the same to 7 brigades of workers.

They would promise the salaries and then disappear for weeks. When we demanded  our salaries, they showed us a document, stating the following: “According to the law of Georgia (no name of the law or article was indicated) you will receive the salaries on 10th of this month.”  Now I realize that they laughed at us, cheated us using this false document.  They did not even sign a contract with us. They made us write our names in a notebook. We registered there when we came to work.

The person who was responsible for the construction does not answer the phone.He knows our phone numbers and when he sees them on the screen of the phone, he does not answer our calls.

Murman Zoidze, worker: I have elderly parents. It is a shame that I worked for so much time and have not been paid the money even to buy medicines for my mother. Our whole  family relies on the mere pension of my parents. I am ashamed to even think that so many people were cheated. They gave us a very small portion of our  salary that was due  before New Year so that we would not publicize the problem.

The Human Rights Centre found out that Ltd. Kristali is registered at 33 Pushkini Street, Batumi. The founder is Gulvardi Diasamidze and Nugzar Davitidze, her husband, manages the construction. Our organization called  the office of Ltd. Kristali (888222 7 99 83) but could not reach the firm administration.

One of the employees of Ltd. Kristali told us that the company leadership is in Tbilisi and he does not know their mobile phone numbers. He promised to find out the number but when we called for the second time, the office guard answered the phone (he did not wish to tell his name) and said: “the boss has just left, I do not know when he will come back; I do not know where he went. He might have gone out of town and return in 2 or3 days.”

We could not find anyone in the office of the construction company when we came there. There were several persons standing outside the building. They said they knew nothing.

We  tryied in vain the whole day to reach Nugzar Davitadze on his alleged number (893 31 94 17).