I’ve just come back from an international conference that could not have happened thirty years ago. And it’s a conference that might also prove impossible to hold in just a few short years. LabourStart’s Global Solidarity Conference on the theme of “trade union internationalism today” was held on the weekend before May Day in Tbilisi, Georgia. The vast majority of the nearly 300 participants came from countries which within living memory had no legal independent trade unions.
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A 36-day strike by Sairme Mineral Waters workers has won better working conditions and higher wages. IUF affiliate Georgian Trade Union of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Workers gained important improvements, despite strong anti-union campaigning by the employer and the government including the arrest of several strikers. Management was also forced to rescind their threat to terminate the workers en masse for striking.