About 400 employees of the Georgian Railway will have an 8-hour strike to persuade the organization to improve labour conditions and security and increase wages.
They have stopped freighting. Refusal of the authorities to make concessions will be followed by radical steps of protest. The staff will decide on further plans at the locomotive shed on Tbilisi outskirts tomorrow.
Ilia Lezhav, an organizer of the strike, said that train drivers get $542 a month for their work, their assistants get $361, bosses get $12 651. Railway staff lacks a fixed schedule, many are forced to work almost 24 hours a day.
Recent negotiations between the staff and its administration have been fruitless.
