Former "Telasi" employees go on hunger strike in Georgia

On November 14, in Tbilisi, three fired employees of the electricity company "Telasi" – Giorgi Lomidze, Zura Meladze and Lasha Kvachadze – went on hunger strike. They hold their protest near the office of the company, where they set up a tent and where dismissed employees gather.

On October 22, the labour collective of "Telasi" went on strike, putting forward, among others, the demand to reinstate the 125 laid-off employees.

As stated by former employees of the company, the bosses failed to fulfil their promise about reinstatement of dismissed employees.

According to former employees of the "Telasi", they were fired illegally in August this year, they assert that politically-motivated persecutions were practiced at the company, the "Georgia Online" writes.

At the initiative of the trade union of the enterprise and Ashot Manukyan, Director General of the "Telasi", a special commission was set up, which decided that the dismissed employees should be reinstated at work on November 1. Despite this, the former employees of "Telasi" have not been officially reinstated yet, the "News.ge" reports.

Zurab Arsoshvili, the former commercial director of the company, has treated the statements of the laid-off employees as a "political speculation", adding that none of them had been dismissed on political reasons.