Two miners from Georgia’s Chiatura go on hunger strike

Two miners from Chiatura, a mining town in western Georgia, have begun a hunger strike, demanding the state get involved in resolving their problems.

On Friday, two miners, Merab Saralidze and Simon Mikatsadze, announced that according to local trade unions, one month’s salaries that were supposed to be credited to the employees have still not been.

The protests against Georgian Manganese, which holds the license for manganese extraction in Chiatura, originally began on 28 February in the centre of Chiatura. At the time, miners repeatedly demanded a meeting with a government representative.

‘We have been talking for 35 days. We have been asking the government to listen to our problems. Even before the protest, we were appealing to the local authorities to meet with us. Despite this, we have not received even basic respect’, Saralidze said.

Georgian Manganese is the largest employer in Chiatura. Its contractor, Chiatura Management Company, claimed to be operating a dozen mines in the municipality.

In October 2024, Georgian Manganese suspended operations in the mines, citing financial difficulties.

However, on 7 March, it was announced that Georgian Manganese and the Chiatura Management Company would no longer resume underground operations in Chiatura at any point in the future due to ‘financial unprofitability’.

Subsequently, the Chiatura Management Company reportedly filed for bankruptcy and laid off 3,500 of its employees.

Georgia’s Health Ministry has organised several meetings of the ‘Tripartite Commission for Social Partnership’ attended by the government officials, Chair of the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation (GTUC) Irakli Petriashvili and President of the Employers’ Association Elguja Meladze, and other ‘representatives of the sector’ to discuss the Chiatura case. However, while miners have also demanded to be part of this commission, their requests have yet to be fulfilled.

Miners from Chiatura have said they don’t trust the GTUC, stating that the organisation is pro-government and doesn’t properly represent their needs.

Protesting miner Tariel Mikatsadze told BM.ge that the miners have begun a hunger strike, demanding to be included in the working group established by the commission.

‘We appeal to the government to include us in the [Tripartite Commission for Social Partnership] so that we can talk about our problems and the state representatives and the company can listen to us. This is our demand and they started the hunger strike with this demand. We are waiting [...] the protest is going into an extreme state’, Mikatsadze said.

In March, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze commented on the miners’ protest in Georgia’s Chiatura municipality, saying that the miners’ demand that the state take over the management of underground mineral extraction works would be ‘in principle wrong’.

In addition to these latest protests, the residents of Shukruti, a village in Chiatura, have been actively demonstrating for several years to raise awareness of the damage caused by Georgian Manganese.

They accuse the company of running operations that have destroyed their homes and spoiled their agricultural lands, in addition to not compensating them for any damage to their property.