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19 September, 2011
The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) today registered strong condemnation with the Government of the Republic of Georgia over the police crushing of a legitimate workers’ strike and formation of a trade union at Euroasian Steels in Kutaisi, Georgia. Police began using forceful tactics last Thursday evening, 15 September, to break a peaceful strike at the 400-worker steel mill, and on 16 September and over the weekend, arrested, detained, and threatened scores of union workers seeking union representation at Euroasian Steels.
In a letter today to Georgian President Mikheil Saakasvhili and Prime Minister Nika Gilauri, the ICEM calls for restoration of human and trade union rights to members of the ICEM affiliate, Metallurgical, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers’ Trade Union of Georgia, and immediate release without charge of three leading union activists, who were picked up and arrested Saturday, 17 September, on bogus charges obviously related to trade union activity. They ICEM also demands job reinstatements for some 20 other workers.
Emilo Gumberidze, Irakli Iobidze, and Milkhaz Gogiava will appear today in court in the provincial capital of Kutaisi and they could face jail sentences. Last Thursday, Georgian police, unprovoked, broke up a strike by 200 metalworkers in front of the Euroasian steel rolling mill in Kutaisi. They detained up to 40 strike participants and the next day police officers raided the homes of many workers, ordered them into police cars, and then incredulously took them to the factory for work shifts. (An ICEM report on this is here.)
In today’s formal complaint to Georgia’s Government over the police actions, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda wrote, “This is an embarrassment to Georgia, a serious stain on Georgian trade and commerce, and it is the opinion of the ICEM that these overt acts of repression bring Georgia back to another time era.”
The ICEM charges Georgian police and the country’s Internal Affairs Ministry with blatant violation of guaranteed social and human rights common in several international charters. The ICEM pledged to stand with the union and the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation (GTUC) in their fight for workers’ rights at Euroasian Steels.
The ICEM is demanding that internal Georgian security forces stop acting as a front for Euroasian Steels, a two-and-a-half-year-old steelmaking enterprise in Kutaisi that has failed to establish even a rudimentary system of employee relations. The enterprise is 87.5% owned by Dubai-based Euroasian Ventures Ltd., itself owned by Indian steel company Manaksia Ltd., and 12.5% by a holding concern controlled by Georgian national Paata Chkhenkeli, who himself is connected to Georgia’s political and economic elite.
The ICEM is a Geneva, Switzerland-based Global Union Federation, representing 20 million workers that belong to 467 trade union affiliates in 132 countries.
For further information, contact ICEM Information Officer Dick Blin, [email protected], +41 22 203 1842.