Workers Resume Construction of Railway Tunnels After Eight Day Rallies

ZVARE, Georgia – After eight days of protest rallies and strikes, the employees of village Zvare, Kharagauli Municipality of West Georgia resumed construction of railway tunnels, after all their demands had been met by the contractor Chinese company.

The protest rallies started on November 3, when seven local workers were brutally beaten allegedly by the representatives of the Chinese contractor company - China Railway 23rd Bureau Group, which was employed by the government of Georgia to build several railway tunnels in West Georgia.

The local workers stated that several of the Chinese workers, carrying knifes, truncheons and baton fittings, attacked the Georgian workers early on November 2 after they found the Georgians were helping a village resident to transport firewood. 

Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia launched an investigation and arrested three Chinese citizens for physically abusing Georgian workers. The investigation established that the attackers injured four local people with sharp objects. The injured men were taken to hospital for medical treatment.

The local workers went on strike, demanding change of management at the contractor company and improvment of their labor conditions, saying the Chinese company frequently violated the workers’ labor rights and often pressured them.

The working process was resumed today, after the management of the Chinese company was replaced by people, recommended by the workers.

Imereti Governor, Professional Union of Georgia and the representatives of the Chinese company managed to reach agreement on all disputable issues on Wednesday.

“We reached an agreement and the management of the company was replaced. Also, all the attackers were sacked from the contractor company. We received guarantees that such incidents will not happen in the future,” Gela Chitiachvili, local worker stated.

Imereti Governor, Givi Chichinadze says that permanent monitoring will be carried out at the working site, to prevent further escalation of the situation.

“We sent our Georgian representative to the company, who will regulate the working process and ensure that the labor rights are not violated,” the Governor stated.

Violation of labor rights is very frequent in Georgia. The Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Public Defender of Georgia recommended the regulations of labor rights were tightened.

By Thea Morrison