Earlier this year, 63 ambulance workers were sacked by the Emergency Situations Coordination and Urgent Assistance Centre of Georgia as a response to their involvement in the HSMCTU health workers' pay campaign.
Continuing actions from last year, members of the HSCMTU health workers’ union organised a demonstration on 17 January to raise concerns about low pay and changes to working conditions. The workers then took their protest inside the emergency services head office with several remaining in the building overnight to highlight the strength of feeling about their situation. Changes to rules on shift work mean that workers can’t work the extra hours they need to make ends meet and the ending of a contract to disinfect vehicles has left staff to do this work, so extra duties without additional pay
After several weeks of conflict, rallies and the threat of strike action, the HSMCTU health union, with the support of the GTUC confederation, secured an agreement from the Ministry of Health that it would not introduce a 12-hour work schedule for paramedics. The Ministry also agreed to remunerate employees’ overtime work and to have further meetings with the union to discuss how to increase salaries. The dispute had arisen following the Ministry’s decision to remove a wage supplement that had been introduced during the Covid pandemic and its plan to introduce a 12-hour work schedule
The EPSU affiliates of North East Europe expressed their concerns about developments in the region in the online meeting of the North East European constituency on 3 March. They received information about the situation in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine.
The Georgian Trade Union Confederation has welcomed the government's ratification of the International Labour Organisation convention on tripartite consultation. The GTUC says that it had been pushing for this for many years and it should now provide the basis to develop social dialogue in the country. However, unions there continue to face major challenges not least the failure of the government to re-establish an effective labour inspection regime. Some 460 workers have died and 796 have been injured since the labour inspectorate was abolished in 2006.
(December 2016) To coincide with a meeting of the EU-Georgia Association Council, trade unions have raised a wide range of concerns on social issues. In particular, unions want to see a much higher minimum wage set by law and with proper enforcement mechanisms. The current minimum wage is extremely low with no real labour inspectorate to ensure implementation.
