Railwaymen protest in Georgia

Georgia, Tbilisi, Oct. 24 / Trend corr. N.Kirtskhalia / About 400 employees of Georgian railway will hold a warning protest march on October 24. According to one of the strike organizers Ilya Lezhava, freight transport will be suspended for 8 hours. Through this action machinists and their assistants will demand improvement of work conditions and safety and increase in wages from the Georgian Railway administration. According to the protest organizers, the suspension of transportation will be the first step, and unless the administration takes measures, the railwaymen plan a more radical protest. Concrete plans will be made at a meeting, which will be held in the locomotive depot in a suburb of Tbilisi on October 25. According to Lezhava the salary of a driver amounts to 900 lari, of engineer assistant - 600 lari, while the administration employees are paid up to 21 thousand lari. The work schedule is not adjusted and operators and their assistants have to work almost the whole day, he said. Previously, negotiations between the administration and railwaymen gave no results. Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az