Former officials of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia and friends of Dimitry Shashkini, former Minister of Education, offer legal support and protection of social rights to kindergarten employees in case of joining their trade union. “Trade Union of Education” head, Giorgi Latsabidze and former head of Ministry’s legal department – Petre Tsurtsumia are holding closed meetings with kindergarten directors of Tbilisi.
According to public registry data, “Trade union of Education” was officially registered on 17 September and its chairperson is Giorgi Latsabidze, while board members re – Nino Burduli, Natia Mumladze and Maka Bejanishvili.
The latter is Petre Tsurtsumia’s spouse. Mr Tsurtsumia is not mentioned in founders list, however it appears that he’s the owner of the organisation’s office. He is also a friend of Dimitry Shashkini and has worked with him during his year at the Ministry of Corrections, Ministry of Education and Science and Ministry of Defense.
Representatives of the abovementioned trade union have already met kindergarten directors of Didube and Gldani regions. Logopedics kindergarten director in Gldani stated that leaders of a new trade union promise help to directors to achieve salary growth.
“They talked about their union, and promised to achieve salary growth up to 900 GEL for kindergarten teachers in every region. They left membership form that we shall fill after making up our minds whether we want to be members or not” – said Ira Kurtanidze.
ESFTUG Didube-Chugureti regional leader, Tamar Barisashvili claims that the activities of “Trade Union of Education” have implicit political purposes.
“Everyone perfectly knows who Giorgi Latsabidze is. For the past years together with Taras Shavshishvili he has been working to attract teachers to join “Professional Syndicate”, which represented union established by government officials. Therefore, it is hard to believe that those personalities now can have pure intentions", – said Tamar Barisashvili.
ESFTUG president – Maia Kobakhidze explains that Mr Tsurtsumia was the one who violated teachers’ rights while working at the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia.
In 2011-2012 more than 10 000 teachers were dismissed from occupied positions for various irrelevant reasons. In 2011 there was a tendency of signing one-year agreements. Ammendments to normative acts of the Law on General Education worsened social conditions of education employees.
We have an impression that Giorgi Latsabidze and Petre Tsurtsumia are trying to realize their political intentions under the name of trade union of teachers. This hypothesis can be proved by the fact that the meetings with kindergarten administration is organized by active involvement of “Kindergarten Agency” of Tbilisi City Hall – is said in a statement.
On the contrary, Giorgi Latsabide blames ESFTUG and “Professional Syndicate of Education: for being politicaly biased and claims that the motif for establishing a new union is to restore teachers’ dignity and actually protect their labour rights.
“I was a member of a Syndicate for a month, but when I realized that they were actually fulfilling the intentions of government officials, I left the organization. Those who are currently in a trade union, are partners with the current government, whilst our union is apolitical and fights to establish a real trade union. We discourage manipulation by teachers. As for Petre Tsurtsumia, he is a professional lawyer and if any of our employees will have political interests, I will be the first who will denounce it publicly” – says Giorgi Latsabidze.
Head of “Trade Union of Education” continues to visit kindergartens and offers legal assisstance even to other unions.