Chinese migrant workers in Daghestan’s Nogay District (/OC Media)
A dispute between an entrepreneur and greenhouse owner in Daghestan’s Nogay district and residents of the village of Nariman took on an ethnic component after a video allegedly of Chinese workers cooking a dog alive went viral on social media. But some from the district have questioned whether this is the true cause of the conflict.
In the market in Gali, the vendors are ethnic Georgians, however the owners of their counters are Abkhaz, according to locals. (Nino Gogua /OC Media)
Jobs are hard to come by in Abkhazia’s eastern Gali District, according to the ethnic Georgians who predominantly make up the district’s population. They say that nepotism and discrimination, both direct and indirect, have made unemployment rife. Some go to Sukhumi to the city’s highly unsafe construction sites, while others are leaving for greener pastures.
For many people with disabilities in Georgia, finding any job at all seems all but impossible. A lack of basic services or even formal schooling and widespread prejudice compounds the problem. The government is taking steps to help people with disabilities into work, but NGOs, who often have to fill the gap, argue that much more needs to be done. [Read more…]
Beauty salon in Yerevan. (Nazik Armenakyan /Daphne)
With high levels unemployment, Armenians are especially vulnerable to exploitation from unscrupulous employers. Given a lack of legal protections, employers are free to discriminate against female applicants based on their age or how they look. For some women, the only answer they see is to undergo cosmetic procedures, to make them look younger in the hope of finding a job. [Read more…]
Screengrab from a video by jailed rights activist and video-blogger Mehman Huseynov (Mehman Huseynov)
Elderly people in Azerbaijan are often seen working well beyond the age of retirement, often in hard physical jobs. The government has tried to celebrate this, claiming that no one wants to retire in Azerbaijan, but others point out that low state pensions give many no other choice. [Read more…]
Small business in the streets of Nalchik (Aslan Urumov /OC Media)
While official statistics may say otherwise, many see unemployment in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay–Cherkessia as among the worst in Russia. Deindustrialisation, social alienation, and local corruption have all played a part in the region’s stagnation.
Yerevan bus station (Armine Avetisyan /OC Media)
Low pay and high unemployment have led many Armenian women to seek work beyond the country’s borders. Despite fears of trafficking, often abusive working conditions, and a closed border with Turkey, the allure of higher salaries have led thousands to leave Armenia, mainly to Russia and even Turkey — a country many consider an ‘enemy land’.
Tevdore Natsabidze, a labourer at the railway tunnel construction site, walks to work. Tevdore was one of roughly fifty striking employees accusing the construction company of violating labour safety rules (Luka Pertaia /OC Media)
Railway construction in central Georgia is a key part of ambitious plans to modernise Georgia’s infrastructure. Despite warnings from trade unions and official inspectors, life for the workers remains a ‘living hell’.
(Armine Avetisyan /Ampop)
One in five workers in Armenia is employed in informal sector, many of them in agriculture. Lack of employment contracts often subjects them to Labour Code violations by employers.
Protest against Fresco (Sopho Aptsiauri /OC Media)
With 24-hour shifts, collective responsibility, and heavy surveillance, employees of Georgian supermarkets complain of being exploited. While supermarket owners justify the hard working conditions with a need to improve customer service, trade unions say the problem lies in a lack of regulations. [Read more…]
