Members of the Trade Union of Metallurgists, Miners and Chemists from different regions joined the protest of IDS Borjomi workers to express solidarity with them. They vow to be ready to fight with the protesters.
The Georgian Public Defender will visit the strikers to get acquainted with their demands.
IDS Borjomi workers continue full-scale picketing of the #1 and #2 bottling factories as they are demanding the payment of delayed salaries, the reinstatement of their dismissed colleagues, the return of previous working conditions, a 25% salary increase, and the ending of “blackmailing and threatening” of local workers.
The company says that due to the sanctions imposed on the investor, Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman, the company was forced to change the employees’ contracts.
According to Borjomi, “the company can no longer afford to pay 100% of the hours missed in the factory due to the suspension of production,” which is why the employees were offered renewed terms, which means remuneration of 50% of the missed hours, while the payment for worked hours remain unchanged.
This condition, the company says, “unfortunately was not acceptable to a small part of the employees”, which, as the company says, forced them to start the reorganization process at the factory and terminate the contracts for 49 employees “on the basis of law.”
