Calls for a general strike in Georgia: where are the unions?

‘Simply and shortly: we have gone on strike’, a Tbilisi-based paintball club wrote on Facebook on  10 December, the twelfth consecutive day of widespread public protests in Georgia.

Paintball.ge is one of a handful of businesses and organisations that have decided to halt their work and go on strike in response to the ruling Georgian Dream party’s suspension of Georgia’s EU membership bid and the subsequent police violence against demonstrators.

Theatres were also on the forefront of protest strikes, including the Royal District Theatre in Tbilisi, which wrote ‘Long live freedom’ in a Facebook announcement on 4 December. Several nightclubs also closed their doors and expressed solidarity with the demonstrators.

According to the Guild, a four year-old independent trade union in the field of culture and media, approximately 90% of its reported 550 members — mostly theatre professionals — are on strike.

‘The public interest compels us to act’, Giga Bekauri, the chair of the Guild, says, noting that the decision to strike was made during a meeting and that the union is currently providing its members with legal advice.

Other sectors became more organised from 13 December, when people from a variety of professions joined a one-hour protest strike, after which different groups including social workers, doctors, HR professionals, lawyers, veterinarians, and IT techs began to hold separate rallies across Tbilisi.

In addition to these organisations and businesses, numerous people have made the individual decision to stop working or studies, including actors, teachers, students, and schoolchildren.

Yet while individuals and certain groups within differing professions have organised marches and various protests, large trade unions have remained conspicuously absent from the process, even as calls grow for daytime rallies and strike actions to make the protests more effective.

A narrow interpretation of the law

The Georgian Trade Unions Confederation (GTUC) is the country’s largest labour union, uniting 21 sectoral unions and claiming to have around 150,000 members.

After the ruling Georgian Dream party suspended the country’s EU membership bid on 28 November, the union issued a statement emphasising its support for European integration and highlighting that voters should have been made aware that the party would make such a decision before the 26 October elections.

The GTUC also criticised Georgian Dream’s recent decision to make it easier for the government to fire civil servants through ‘reorganisation’ of state bodies. The authorities have previously been accused of using the ‘reorganisation’ process to purge state employees seen as not being loyal to the ruling party. The GTUC expressed a readiness to provide legal aid to those whose labour rights were violated for exercising their freedom of expression.

However, their involvement largely ended there.

‘I can’t tell you that a general strike is currently on our agenda. It’s really not the case’, Raisa Liparteliani, the GTUC’s Deputy Chair, says.

The main reason for the GTUC’s hesitation, according to Lipateliani, is Georgia’s labour code, which exclusively ties the concept of a strike to a labour dispute between the employee and the employer at the workplace.

‘In many countries, general strikes, which involve a nationwide strike due to the overall situation in the country,  are recognised. However, such forms are not legally recognised in Georgia’, she says.

According to Liparteliani, much depends on individual companies and how supportive they are of employees’ protests during working hours. Otherwise workers risk being fired or having their employers demand compensation for lost work.

Liparteliani emphasises that in 2020, when the Georgian Labour Code was being reformed, the GTUC proposed adding ‘general strikes’ and ‘solidarity strikes’ to the Code. The GTUC consulted with both the Parliament and the Tripartite Social Solidarity Commission, a consultative body led by the Prime Minister and made up of representatives from the government, employers, and workers operating in various sectors. However, the attempt was unsuccessful.

Salome Shubladze, Director of Social Programmes at the Social Justice Centre (SJC), a local rights group, highlights that the labour code’s bureaucratic procedures, such as the mandatory 21-day mediation process between employees and employers before a strike, are irrelevant in the current situation.

Emphasising the narrow definition of strikes in the law, Shubladze adds that a broader interpretation is still possible based on international agreements signed by Georgia, which make them part of the country's legal framework. These agreements include the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; the European Social Charter; and Convention No. 87 of the International Labour Organisation.

Such documents, Shubladze suggests, could include a general strike triggered by political decisions of the government that may impact workers’ social and economic conditions.

‘It is clear that halting the EU integration process and refusing budget grants could be considered a decision with potential effects on the economy and, consequently, on workers’ working conditions’, she adds.

Summing up the context, Shubladze believes that in this situation, a workers’ strike would not be ‘outright illegal’. However, she emphasises that workers must understand the risks associated with ‘the narrow interpretation’ of such standards by Georgian courts.

An emerging split within Georgia’s union landscape

Among Georgia’s biggest unions, there is no clear consensus on whether to support a general strike or not. Even within the GTUC, there are differing opinions.

‘Revolt!’, ‘Strike!’ are two key calls to action found in social media posts by LABOR, a union representing agriculture, trade, and industry which is one of the 21 sectoral organisations making up the GTUC. According to LABOR, Georgian Dream promotes oligarchy, hatred, deception, and lies, all things LABOR is against, which is why workers should band together to create a general strike or worker’s revolt.

‘I think that in this situation, [Georgia’s labour code] should not be an obstacle [for a strike]. Nothing should be’, Giorgi Diasamidze, the chair of LABOR, says.

However, he emphasises that questions about the consequences of a general strike have been raised by workers.

In addition, Diasamidze acknowledges that the idea of a strike is unacceptable not only to the government, but also to some of his colleagues within the GTUC.

‘There are trade union organisations and their leaders who claim that their members are not united and a large part of them oppose participating in protests or strikes’, he notes.

One GTUC representative who has raised the risk of internal conflict within the union in the event of a strike is Vitali Giorgadze, the head of the Georgian Railway Workers’ New Trade Union.

‘There are people with different political preferences [in our union]: supporters of both the ruling party and the opposition’, he says, highlighting the political diversity within his union.

Even though Giorgadze believes the government should ‘step back’, he currently doesn’t see the need for a strike. When asked about a possible red line, the crossing of which would mandate a general strike, Giorgadze  expressed hope that ‘such a need won’t arise’, pointing out his desire for ‘dialogue and consensus’.

While the GTUC remains cautious, some others are trying to increase pressure on the government by escalating work stoppages.

Giga Bekauri, the chair of Guild, calls strikes ‘a historical idea’ that can overcome bureaucratic barriers. He recalls the 2018 Tbilisi Metro case, when train drivers began a brief hunger strike knowing the administration would bar them from driving trains due to hunger-related medical conditions, allowing them to bypass the court’s restrictive decision and go on strike.

Bekauri emphasises that, in addition to the narrow definition of a strike provided by Georgia’s labour code, there are alternative ways for people to protest. These include taking paid or unpaid leave, working strictly according to their contracts and as slowly as possible, as well as citing an article in the labour code that allows employees to refuse work if they believe their life or health is at risk.

‘Even here there is the smell of tear gas’, Bekauri notes while speaking to OC Media at a café near the epicentre of the protests. ‘Therefore, employees here can easily refuse to work.’

Bekauri also brings up the street violence waged by groups of masked men, widely assumed to have been hired by the government, which could pose a threat to the safety of workers operating in the area.

According to Bekauri, just like within the GTUC, there are people with different political views in his union too. However, he says they reached a compromise around the idea that violence is unacceptable and must be condemned.

‘When people are being beaten on the streets, their bones are broken, […] the trade union must take responsibility and adopt the right position’, he says.

Bekauri himself was once a member of the GTUC and the leader of its youth wing, but left the confederation four years ago. One of the reasons for his departure was, as he says, the GTUC’s reluctance to address the issue of strikes.

‘Even when we were there, there was always talk about not striking, let’s not do it’, he says, speculating on possible reasons for this reluctance, not ruling out political influences.

Is the GTUC politically independent?

The GTUC claims political independence under its chair Irakli Petriashvili, who has occupied this position since 2005. During one of his reelection campaigns in 2017, he even attacked his opponent with the accusation that he was a puppet of the government.

The following year, however, Petriashvili and the GTUC openly endorsed Salome Zourabichvili, who was, at the time, Georgian Dream’s presidential candidate, citing the hostile policy towards labour rights and unions during the previous United National Movement (UNM) government.

This year, on 25 October, the night before the parliamentary elections, Petriashvili appeared on the pro-government TV channel Imedi, where he stated that while ‘today’s [labour] environment is not ideal’,  it was better than it was under the UNM, emphasising that the ex-ruling party was ideologically opposed to pro-labour policies.

‘People were in such a difficult situation due to the deregulated environment [under the UNM] that they don’t need guidance now on what choice to make [on election day]’, Petriashvili added. He also repeated some Georgian Dream messages, including criticism of what the ruling party refers to as ‘LGBT propaganda’.

‘These and other facts make us think [about possible political influences]’, Bekauri says regarding the union confederation’s decision not to strike.

Liparteliani also sees the timing of Petriashvili’s appearance on Imedi as ‘extremely problematic’, but says that the criticism he leveled towards the formerly ruling UNM party is valid.

She also points out that Petriashvili’s position towards the current ruling party does not represent the stance of the entire trade union confederation.

‘There are such differing opinions [within the unions], including political ones, that it is unimaginable for anyone to speak for this organisation.’

Liparteliani also firmly rejects that trade unions have given up on strikes. Instead, she says that people are being helped to organise a strike in accordance with the law.

‘There has never been a precedent where, when there was a momentum of protest, we did not organise a strike in accordance with the law’, she says.

She also mentions that the GTUC began meeting with workers in the regions even before the elections, discussing the importance of European integration. Now, as she points out, those trade union representatives, herself included, who consider it important to be present at the protests, are there individually.

Remnants of a Soviet legacy

The GTUC was established in 1992, just one year after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Under the Soviet Union’s authoritarian rule, strikes were virtually eradicated. In addition, the concept of trade unions as a submissive element of the state apparatus inherently excluded any form of opposition to government policies.

‘By the 1930s, people likely no longer remembered what a strike was or how trade unions should function’, historian Gabriel Chubinidze says, describing a strike at that time as something equivalent to treason and trade unions as ‘tourist agencies’ who were tasked with sending workers to sanatoriums as one of their major functions.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, organising unions and strikes still remained a major challenge in independent Georgia due to the accompanying crises, including the economic turmoil and the dismantling of the country’s industrial base. These factors led to the extreme fragmentation of the working class and a large portion of the workforce moving into self-employment.

This situation, combined with what critics often describe as the state's neoliberal policies, contributed to an inability by trade unions to make effective gains, which also affected their reputation among the public. This was accompanied by internal conflicts within the union circles, including disputes over leadership and Soviet-era properties.

[Read more: Datablog | Youth in Georgia have little trust in unions]

According to Chubinidze, the dismantling of stable working-class strongholds and the ‘economic chaos, where people could change jobs several times a year’, still makes organising effective strikes difficult.

This is also shaped by the older workers’ Soviet-era memory of a ‘no-strike’ policy and the hostile attitudes towards strikes among independent Georgia’s political elites, Chubinidze says, as well as people’s fear of losing their jobs or being left alone when protesting.

The SJC’s Salome Shubladze believes that the involvement of trade unions in organising workers’ actions is crucial in ensuring that workers feel they are not alone, especially in the case of a strike that is not explicitly regulated by law.

‘The strength of the union lies in organising such collective actions […] If they truly understand the importance of European integration in this country, I believe they should take on this role and use the number of their members to organise these processes’, Shubladze adds.

Historian Gabriel Chubinidze suggests that if he were in the GTUC’s position, he would at least set a strike date to test the government’s response and then act accordingly.

For now, however, such an initiative does not seem to be on the horizon, though alternative options continue.

On 10 December, the Guild union announced the creation of a strike fund for those whose income is based on commissions instead of a stable salary in order to allow their members to keep striking.

On 13 December, the Hearing House, a small rehabilitation centre operating in Tbilisi, announced that it would go on strike every day from 13:00 to 14:00.