As Georgian workers struggle in the aftermath of the Russian invasion, Solidarity Center Country Program Director Robert Fielding is on the ground in Georgia and providing dispatches from the field.

	GTUC President Irakli Petriashvili tells Russian troops that Georgian workers want to go back to their jobs.

August 19, 2008 — The Russian invasion of Georgia is hitting everyone hard, but the leaders of the Georgian Trade Union Confederation (GTUC) felt they couldn’t sit idly by and watch their members suffer. Yesterday, GTUC President Irakli Petriashvili and two GTUC vice presidents led a group of 40 trade union leaders and activists out of the safe haven of the capital, Tbilisi, to the nearest Russian army checkpoint, some 21 miles to the north. They went there to send a message from the workers of Georgia that they wanted to go back to work and that the Russian occupation was making this impossible. The Russian army’s seizure of many important cities and towns as well as Georgia’s main port has split the country in two. Russian troops have blockaded roads and blown up a major railway bridge, making east-west travel in Georgia impossible.

Of the 158,000 Georgian refugees created by the fighting, tens of thousands have been out of work for nearly two weeks, as the Russian occupation has prevented them from getting to their workplaces. The GTUC decided that it was time to go directly to the Russian troops and show them that the working people of Georgia have had enough. Yesterday they drove out of Tbilisi toward Gori, now a ghost town since all but several hundred of Gori’s more than 60,000 residents fled after the Russians bombed it two weeks ago. They made it to the Russian checkpoint in the village of Igoeti, where they were stopped by Russian guards.
Up to this point, the Russians had been allowing only foreign diplomats, some international aid organizations, and certain journalists—all equipped with bulletproof flak jackets—through the checkpoint. The GTUC were unarmed and wearing no protection. Men and women workers carried signs written in Russian and English, reading, “Trade Unions Want an End to Occupation,” “Russians Go Home,” and “Stop Russia.”
 
As they approached the roadblock, flanked by Russian tanks and watched over by Russian army units and snipers hidden in the hills surrounding the checkpoint, the GTUC representatives began to chant, “Georgia!” and “Long Live Georgia!” They went up to the frontline and a 15-minute-long argument ensued between the two Russian officers in charge. Brother Petriashvili explained that Russian bombardments of civilian targets, including the workplaces of their members, had killed 10 oil terminal workers in the port city of Poti, seven civilian employees in the city of Senaki, and a railway worker in Kaspi. Their “peacekeeping” activity had left hundreds of non-combatant Georgian workers in hospitals. Their “preventive” measures had left tens of thousands of workers without a livelihood, without the wherewithal to feed their families, and in the case of the refugees, without even a roof over their heads.

After the Russian officers calmed down and understood that the GTUC demonstrators posed no military or physical threat to them, they relaxed and walked far enough away to embolden their troops to risk engaging the GTUC people in a conversation. It soon became clear to the GTUC that most of those Russian troops didn’t want to be in Georgia any more than the GTUC wanted them there. These troops stressed that they had not done any fighting, but had been recently brought in to bolster the already 10,000-man-strong Russian army of invasion. They said that all they wanted to do was to go back home as soon as possible.

As of this writing, the Russian army shows no signs of leaving. But the workers of Georgia aren’t giving up either. 

The Solidarity Center has set up a special fund to support Georgian workers. Your tax-deductible contribution will provide food, shelter, and counseling for thousands of Georgian union members who have lost jobs, homes, and families in the aftermath of the Russian invasion. Click on the link below to contribute.