NGO “Young Barristers” presented the results of implemented research: “Georgian ranking companies in the process of implementation of the new Labour Code’s standards”. Organization considered public’s high interest towards labour legislation alterations and decided to monitor well-known Georgian companies. Taking into account the amendments, the purpose of the research was to make public the legal status of employees and employers, identify problems and submission of the existing gaps in the legislation and lobbying.

During the monitoring process the organization was guides by several principles to check the implementation of the new Labour Code’s standards by ranking Georgian companies, in particular: Companies participating in the research should be reliable and well-known to the public; Companies participating should not be from one field of market; and companies participating should have a large-scale payer status. Taking into account the database received from the Revenue Service of Georgia, the following 22 companies were selected: “Aldagi”, “Barambo”, “Elit Electronics”, “Gumbati Group”, “Caucasus Online”, “Casino Adjara”, “Coca-Cola Botllers Georgia”, “Magticom”, “Lomisi”, “Nikora”, “New Hospitals”, “Populi”, “ProCredit Bank”, “PSP Pharma”, TV company “Rustavi 2”, “Taglaura Management Company”, Tegeta Motors”, “Telasi”, “Wisol Petroleum Georgia”, “KazTransGas-Tbilisi”, “Georgian Post” and “Georgian Railway”. From selected 22 companies only 7 of them involved in the research, 12 companies did not participate for various reasons and 3 of them did not provide communication on the whole.

Research revealed that after the amendments of the Labour Code companies: “Coca-Cola Botlers Georgia”, “Magticom”, “KazTransGas-Tbilisi”, “Georgian Post”, “New Hospitals”, Tegeta Motors” and “Gumbati Group” provided new labour agreements for employees and by December 2013 condition upgraded all existing labour contracts on the basis of the new Code.

According to the results of research “Coca-Cola Bottlers Georgia” has renewed labour contract with 365 employees in company, “KazTransGas-Tbilisi” with 983 employees, “Gumbati Group” with 85 employees, “Tegeta Motors” with 780 employees, “New Hospitals” with 808 employees, according the “Georgian Post’s” information, since 1 September of 2013, they had renewed labor contract with all employees of the company and the “Magticom” noticed that “There are hundreds of employees in their company and the alterations in the Labor Code had not any influence over the number of employees”.

Research revealed that the companies participating in the study signed 1 year contract with employees. Prior to the amendments to the Labour Code employees signed a 1 month contracts or 6 month contracts with probationary period. The organization expressed their desire to make a legal examination of labour contracts, but “New Hospitals” and “Gumbati Group” were the only companies who had provided samples of new labor contracts. Other companies participating in the study had not produced the contract templates proving that it contains confidential content.

Organization noticed that the companies participating in the research had not any legal obligation to participate in the research on issue: “Georgian ranking companies in the process of implementation of the new Labour Code’s standards”. But the companies that had not participated in the suggested initiative could not satisfy public’s high interest toward the amendments to the Labour Code.

Despite of the publication of the research, organization takes into consideration the fact that, despite of alterations in the Labour Code,  labor relation between employer and employee is still problematical in Georgia and the organization recommends the companies which were not participated and the citizens who are working in the companies listed above, taking into consideration the public’s and employees’ high interests and according to the principle of transparency the implementation of the following actions should take place:

• Companies, which denied to take part in the research: “Georgian ranking companies in the process of implementation of the new Labour Code’s standarts”, ought to make ready the information, that was addressed to them on August 16, 2013 and have to publish it on their official websites till 10 February, 2014.
• The organization, taking into consideration the high standart of confidence, is ready to meet and get acquinted with employees  of the companies, in order to provide the reliable and unbiased information, about implementation of the new Labour Code and about the possitive and problematic sides of the work enviroment between employers and employees.
• In case these companies would leave unattended monitoring of the issues raised by the organization to publicize in the proposed timing and format, the authors of the research will suggest that this companies have not implemented the regulations of the new Labour Code, and if so, this might  become a subject of public discussion and consideration.

The prepared document for future introduction will be sent to the executive and legislative branches of Georgia, also to other organizations and groups interested by the subject, in order to take into account companies’ conceptions and observations, while working on future improving of the Legal Code. The research was conducted from august 2013, to the end of December, 2013.