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Changes to Georgia's labor code

Presenting the changes in the labor code , Minister of Justice, Thea Tsulukiani, said not only the local but international organizations criticized releasing employees without relevant arguments. Interpressnews reports that according to Tsulukiani, the new project presents an absolutely new approach to the issue; the format of the working agreement will also change.

Tsulukiani said if the agreement between the employer and employee used to be verbal rather than written and deprived the employee from protecting his/her own rights, the planned changes would regulate the code in a different way. “As a fact today, Georgia has a text that is just called the Code of Labor. This is why we met with the professional unions, employers, international organizations and worked out a new project,” said the minister, explaining that none of the employers would have an opportunity to release their staff without proving their reasons.

A group chaired by Deputy Minister Alexandre Baramidze in cooperation with the various ministries, professional unions, diplomatic corps and the civil sector, revealed the drawbacks of the acting legislation.

Head of Professional Unions, Irakli Petriashvili, said the working group has considered almost all the pieces of advice of the unions.



Merabishvili: Georgia faces budgetary crisis

Secretary General of the United National Movement (UNM) Vano Merabishvili spoke about the economic crises in the country. Liberali writes that according to Merabishvili, experts from the UNM received data from various economic sources and found that if the GPD growth in all four quarters of 2011 were significant, in first quarter of 2012, GDP decreased by 6.7%; in the second quarter 8.2%; in the third 7.5% and in the fourth GDP decreased by 2.3%. Merabishvili compared the results of December 2010, 2011 and 2012, stressing that if the economic increase for 2010 was 6.1%, in 2011 it reached 8.5% while in 2012 the figure roughly fell to an “alarming” -1.5%.

The UNM Secretary General said that businesses are under systematic pressure. He said the police have now started investigating economic crimes, which was prohibited during his ministry. Merabishvili also thinks that the current government does not have a precise action plan, so the farmers do not know what are among the economic priorities of the Georgian Dream. He said the country has not faced such a critical condition in the last 3 years. “If it would have happened during the former governance, a state of emergency would have been announced,” he said, adding that if the new government does not take the necessary measures in time, not only the new, but even the old projects planned by the UNM government will be threatened.