"Pro-Business" Georgia Arrests Strikers

Georgia this weekend found itself on a fine line between its commitment to promoting a business-friendly environment and its civil rights obligations. Low taxes and few government regulations? You got it here. Easy labor policy? Hire and fire away! Collective bargaining? Apparently, nothing a few arrests can’t solve, critics say.

Georgian police on September 15 arrested over a dozen striking steel workers in the central city of Kutaisi . Some 100 employees of the Dubai-registered steel manufacturer Hercules had been camped outside the plant to protest what they claim are suboptimal work conditions.

At a time when the government's entire focus appears to be on cozying up to employers and keeping tax revenues coming in, a strike was not an event likely to be viewed warmly by Tbilisi.

But the police maintain that they only intervened when Hercules complained about the strikers causing trouble with the workers hired as their replacements.

The Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, a legal reform advocacy group, however, has condemned the detentions as a blatant violation of freedom of assembly.

The detained workers were released overnight after they promised in writing not to participate in strikes anymore, union officials claimed. The police say, however, that the detainees were only requested to sign a routine police warning paper.

Three more strikers, however, were arrested on September 18 for defying police orders. They have been sentenced to 10 days in jail. The unions say that the three men were planning to help file a lawsuit against the state for dispersing the strike.