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18 September, 2011
State police in Georgia brutally broke a strike by metalworkers last week in Kutaisi, in western Georgia. In the evening of day three (15 September) of a walkout by some 200 workers at Eurasian Steels that was sparked by ICEM affiliate Metallurgical, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers’ Trade Union and the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation (GTUC), dozens of police cars escorted Imereti Region Governor Lasha Makatsaria across picket lines and into the steel rolling mill. Police then left those cars and rushed the strikers, taking many away.
As some strikers fled, police rounded them up. Around 40 strikers, including four hunger strikers at the factory’s plant gates, were taken to police headquarters. They were held for several hours, lectured on strike activity, and then made to sign a document stating they would engage in no further action. Some of the 40 were summarily fired by the police who issued dismissal papers from Euroasian Steels.
Twenty-one trade union activists have now been sacked at Euroasian Steels, or Hercules Steel, as it is called, including six on 11 August. Last week’s mass strike was on their behalf, and on many inept management practices that have plague the newly built plant over the past two years. A two-hour warning strike occurred on 2 September that was joined in support by the Georgia Automobile Transport and Highway Workers’ Union, the Independent Trade Union of Agricultural Workers, a food processing union, and two professional unions – the Representatives of Educators and Scientists and the Union of Artists.
Management of the steel mill, led by a prominent Georgian, has refused to address the union or the workers’ serious concerns.
The ICEM reacted with contempt to last week’s police actions. “We witnessed Georgia’s internal police use force to break a strike and now attempt to manage the labour conduct inside this enterprise,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “It is ludicrous, against all rationality, and there has to be sinister reasons behind it. We demand to know why our affiliated trade union’s concerns on behalf of workers have not been heard.”
ICEM will continue the stand with Metallurgical, Mining, Chemical Ubnion of Georgia and with the GTUC. (In 2010, ICEM's Warda and GTUC President Iraki Petriashvile, left)
After the round-up and release of strike activists in the early morning hours of 16 September, police then began raiding the homes of many Euroasian workers – including several strikers from the day before – and forcibly brought them to work. A report said a worker not involved in the strike and who was scheduled to work a late shift on 16 September, was forcibly taken from his home and bought in earlier than usual to work.
Police are controlling shift attendance by workers and internal reports are regularly made to police authorities. When workers inquire as to why the police involvement, they are told it is necessary to prevent another strike.
On Friday, workers returning to the steel mill were met with a mandate to either sign a statement denouncing Metallurgical, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers’ Trade Union, or face dismissal within three days. The ICEM has learned many are resisting and believes this is due to a core group of 180 union activists who are gaining in strength and remain steadfast in their determination not to be deterred from a union voice at Hercules.
The ICEM has vowed to support them through an international outcry in coordination with other labour groups.
Meanwhile, there has been a constant police presence outside the factory over the weekend, 16-18 September. At 13h on Saturday, 17 September, internal security police rounded and arrested three union leaders: Emilo Gumberidze, Irakli Iobidze, and Malkhaz Gogiava.
The three have been key in coordinating support for the 21 dismissed union members among civil society groups, and the ICEM calls the Georgian government out on violating common freedom of association principals.
Euroasian Steels is an Indian-Georgian enterprise, 87.5% owned by Dubai-based Euroasian Ventures Ltd., which itself is owned by India’s 12th largest steelmaker, Manaksia Ltd., a company specializing in caps, crowns, and metal containers as well as a metal trader. The Kutaisi mill began in spring 2009 to produce rebar and steel billet for a Central Asian market. Built on the former site of a concrete structures plant in Kutaisi, it employs 400 workers, including 130 Indian nationals.
They are treated like indentured servants. Management is in possession of their passports, their salaries are sent back to India, they are given meagre stipends to live on in Kutaisi, and they are instructed not to make contact with Georgian workers. The Indians work dirty and dangerous jobs on four of the operation’s eight furnaces and they work apart from Georgian workers.
Some months ago, the Indian workers staged a strike of their own, which resulted in the beating of the Indian plant director, Raji Kumar Sureika.
At Euroasian Steels in the Imereti region, sweatshop conditions persist. There is no Human Resources department, no wage structures, and no adherence to internationally recognised work standards. Work-weeks can last up to 80 hours, there is no overtime pay, workers are routinely refused to use paid vacations, and there is an inordinate amount of industrial injuries.
As in 2010 in Georgia, ICEM will Vehemently Protest Trade Union Repression in Georgia
In July 2010, workers protested because of wage arrears. Seven of the leaders of that protest were arrested and were jailed for 20 days.
The Georgian who controls Euroasian Steels and whose holding company owns a 12.5% stake is Paata Chkhenkeli. He is general director of the operation and in 2005, he formed a joint venture with the Manaksia Group called Georgia Metalix Ltd. in order to export scrap steel from Georgia. A short time later, he bought a controlling stake of the Georgia-based scrap-metal salvage firm Meoshavliti, and the deal was soon realised between Chkhenkeli, Manaksia, and the Georgian government to construct the Kutaisi mill.
Paata Chkhenkeli, 52, has close connections to senior level figures in the Georgian government. From 2000 to 2003, fresh from a 11-year tenure as director of Iberia Construction Co. in Russia and Georgia, he served as state advisor to Georgia’s Minister of Economy.
The ICEM this week will lodge protests with the Georgian government over last week’s ruthless actions. While union activity inside Euroasian is certain to be stymied temporarily because of last week’s police put-down, the flames of discontent are still very much alive. ICEM will remain connected to shop-floor activists in Kutaisi and their union representatives of the Metallurgical, Mining, Chemical Workers’ Union and GTUC.