26 September, 2011
Three trade union leaders at Euroasian Steels in Kutaisi, Georgia, will be released from jail late this week after serving ten-day administrative arrests. Emilo Gumberidze, Irakli Iobidze, and Malkhaz Gogiava were rounded up in a marketplace in Kutaisi eight days ago, three days after Georgian police brutally broke a strike there by ICEM affiliate Metallurgical, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers’ Trade Union of Georgia.
The three were charged with narcotics possession/consumption and given drug tests. All three plainly passed. But in expressing the ridiculousness of the charge, the three were cited with disrespecting police. On 19 September, the Kutaisi City Court sentenced Gumberidze, Iobidze, and Gogiava to ten days in jail.
The sentence was a ruse to lock up trade unionists who are leading a legitimate workers’ movement decrying a two-year-old worksite that has no wage structures, no plan on safety and health, no adherence to global labour standards, no overtime pay, but limitless and mandatory work at low pay. When workers exercised their global right to strike under such conditions, they were met by a police crackdown reminiscent of a police state. Twenty-nine steelworkers at Euroasian, or known locally as Hercules, have been fired in recent weeks for exerting their voice over the horrid and despicable working conditions.
Euroasian Steels is an Indian-Georgian enterprise, 87.5% owned by Manaksia Ltd.’s Euroasian Ventures, and 12.5% by Paata Chkhenkeli, a Georgian construction engineer who has close ties with a government eager for business but void of labour or regulatory statutes. Hercules is a mini-mill that rolls rebar and steel billet from molten iron scrap and then sells the steel bar to central Asia’s construction industry.
Georgian police brutally break strike: 15 September
Photo: RIA Novosti
It employs 400 workers, including 130 Indian nationals who are segregated from the Georgian workers and who themselves are treated like indentured servants. Their passports are held by management, their salaries sent back to India, and they are given a small stipend to live on. On 21 September – separate from the Metallurgical, Mining, Chemical Workers’ Union’s clash – Indian workers went on a two-hour work stoppage to protest their dire conditions. It was their second strike in recent months.
The situation at Euoasian Steels in Kutaisi is gaining widespread attention, which cannot be good for the Georgian business climate or the country’s social record. The ICEM sent a sharp letter of protest to Georgia President Mikheil Saakasvhili and Prime Minister Nika Gilauri on 19 September over the previous week’s blatant human rights abuses by police and government authorities. (An ICEM news release is here.)
LabourStart has started a new Georgia campaign on the most recent repression and can be found here. And several protest actions by the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation (GTUC), NGO, and others in Georgian civil society were held last week at government ministries in Tbilisi and provincial offices in Kutaisi. These will continue this week, culminating in a mass action at Georgia’s parliament on 1 October.