Requirements of Railway Workers on Strike Were Satisfied

Manon Bokuchava, Kvemo Kartli

Part of railway workers finished strike in one day. Their requests were satisfied after 6-hour meeting. Georgian Railway Ltd promised strikers to reimburse extra working hours, increase salaries according to working experience and to introduce bonus system in the institution. 

Railway workers in Gardabani were also pleased with the agreement though state that rail-track unit of Gardabani Railway Station still have to work in hard conditions. 

The main purpose of the rail-track unit of Gardabani Railway Station is to shift rail-tracks. The service workers state if the tracks are incorrectly moved, it might result into a tragedy. At the same time, they have everything outdated – instruments and tools. The service has new instruments too but they are not sufficient for the implemented work; they do not have enough workers either. “Now I will show you a checkroom, which is the best one here. Although we work outside, as we shift tracks, in winter, when workers have to clean tracks from snow, they have to stay in here at nights. You see that there is concrete floor and wooden walls; the ceiling is damaged,” Davit Rekhviashvili, employee of the rail-track unit, said and added that workers of other units have to work in harder conditions. “Those people have breaks on the spot where they change tracks. So, they cannot even return to the checkrooms but at the end of the working day they need this room. We do not have bathroom either; railway workers do very dirty job and it is very difficult to go home in such conditions,” Rekhviashvili said.

Check-room of their railway station is wooden and has three small rooms in it. There is concrete floor in the workers’ room; rusty sink and wood oven occupy the big part of the room. Bread and little food are left on the table. Russian instructions on rail-track movement and security measures are put up on the walls. Workers explained that those instructions were written during Soviet Union though they still continue working according to them. The main machine of the operative unit is also from soviet epoch. Operator-on-duty Irakli Mebagishvili said he has hard job but they work in better environment than rail-track unit – he has no contact with tracks so does not need checkrooms and bathroom. “Indeed I have better conditions; though I think the checkrooms shall be repaired. As for the strike results, we are pleased with it. Hopefully, they will resolve other problems too,” Mebagishvili said.

Railway workers from Gardabani said they have worked at different stations but Gardabani is the most difficult. They said most cargo is transported via this station because it is linked with both Azerbaijan and Middle Asia that makes their work tenfold harder.