Georgia has recently seen a wave of strikes by newly established unions. In summer 2018, the Ertoba2013 union, which organises Tbilisi’s metro workers, shut down the Georgian capital for several days, before the city municipality eventually met its demands. Earlier this year, a new social workers union staged a successful strike for wage increases and better working conditions.
Both unions are allies of the Solidarity Network, an activist union and workers centre started by retail and service sector workers in 2015. Together with the metro workers, social workers and a union of media workers, the Solidarity Network has recently launched a new, nationwide trade union confederation, challenging the position of the Georgian Confederation of Trade Unions (GTUC).
The Solidarity Network does not currently have any paid staff, and is run by volunteers. Two of the group’s founders, Sopio Japaridze and Revaz Karanadze, spoke to openDemocracy about the challenges and possibilities of radical labour organising in today’s Georgia.
