Global Rights Index 2014 - Georgia

Country Rating: 3

• Regular violation of rights

• Government and/or companies are regularly interfering in collective labour rights or are failling to fully guarantee important aspects of these rights. There are deficiencies in laws and/or certain practices which make frequent violations possible.

Merab Targamadze (deputy president of Georgian Railway Workers New Trade Union, GRWNTU) and Davit Vashakidze (member of the board of GRWNTU) were threatened by high rank representatives of the Georgian Railway Management on 14 November 2014.

Zaza Mchedlidze, President of the Trade Union office at GTM Group was threatened by the GTM General Director Avtandil Kochadze and finally dismissed on 27 July 2013. Management was opposed to establishment of a union in the company and was dismissing union leaders in an effort to crush the movement. Two other members of the union committee, Manuchar Liluashvili and Zurab Khvedelidze, were dismissed on 25 July 2013.

The law prohibits anti-union discrimination, but does not provide adequate means of protection against it. The employment relationship is suspended when a worker is participating in a strike (Art.2 (a) Labour Code).

Categories of workers prohibited or limited from forming or joining a union: Art.3 Labour Code (2013) defines employees as persons working on the basis of an employment contract which has to be in written form after three months of employment. This implies that informal and precarious workers are not within the scope of the labour law.

Barriers to lawful strike actions: In case of a dispute over collective employment relations, the right to strike or lockout is acquired 21 calendar days from the moment of sending the written notification to the Minister (Art.49 Labour Code). Art.49 (1) Labour Code defines a strike as the "voluntary refusal of the employee in case of a dispute to perform fully or partially the obligations imposed by the employment contract." This implies that sympathy strikes are not permitted.