More than 4,000 workers at Evolution Georgia, an online casino known for employing large numbers of Georgia students, went on strike on July 12, demanding a pay increase and decent working conditions.
The strike follows long-standing concerns about the working conditions of the largely student staff and recent scandalous chat leaks in which managers allegedly disparaged company employees.
“A strike is taking place,” said Evo Union, a union formed by the company’s workers two years ago, as strikers gathered near the company’s headquarters in Tbilisi. A long list of demands includes wage increases, including a 100 percent increase for certain positions such as game hosts and shufflers, annual inflation adjustments, the addition of tipping options for customers, and better health conditions such as improved insurance and the right to menstrual leave. Workers are also demanding more breaks during shifts, removing barriers to paid and unpaid leave and creating a safer and more humane work environment.
Evolution is an international gaming company that positions itself as a leading provider of “B2B online casino services delivered to our customers’ players across multiple channels and devices.” The company says it employs “over 16,000 people in studios across Europe and North America,” half of which, up to 8,000 employees, could work in Georgia, where the company began operations in 2018 as “Evolution Georgia.”
It is known that most of Georgia's workforce consists of local students seeking employment to make ends meet.
Evolution Georgia has been actively recruiting as a “first job” provider. According to the official wage policy, a full-time entry-level game moderator job – the most common position – can earn up to 900 GEL ($329) net per month for day shifts and 1225 GEL ($450) for night shifts. The company promises other perks like paid breaks, health insurance and bonuses.
But workers say the reality is bleaker. Net hourly wages range from 3 GEL ($1) for shufflers to 5 GEL ($1.8) for game moderators, and bonuses of 300-400 GEL ($110-145) per month make up an important part of their salary. However, these can easily be lost due to unforeseen circumstances, such as employees ending their shift early because they are feeling unwell. The likelihood of feeling unwell is high. Workers have reported stressful routines that involve sitting upright for hours, in uncomfortable chairs, under bright lights and cameras trained on them. They have also complained about poor air conditioning, dirty and unsanitary offices and management's insensitivity to workers' health concerns and emergencies.
And according to reports, there are situations in which toxicity manifests itself in the truest sense of the word.
“Workers have to work in the dust and the overpowering smell of glue and paint,” a union representative told Mautskebeli online media as renovation work is underway. They cited several cases in which management forced workers to continue working despite these adverse conditions.
Blow – finally
Labor legislation in Georgia has improved in recent years, but legally conducting strikes is notoriously complicated. But as cases mounted, discontent grew and negotiations with management failed, the union launched a strike that its representatives described as “historic.”
Still, union members say management is putting pressure on workers not to join the action. In a statement responding to the strike, the Georgia Public Defender's Office cited widespread practices by employers who, when employees are dissatisfied, resort to “harassment of employees based on dissent, firings, or other types of violations of labor rights.”
Evolution Georgia downplayed the extent of the dissatisfaction, saying the majority of workers continued to show up for work.
“Unfortunately we were unable to reach an agreement, which has now led some of our employees to go on strike. However, the absolute majority of our employees continue to work,” the company said in its July 12 statement, adding that it “will continue to follow an established process and comply with local laws and all applicable regulations.”
Not going anywhere?
The strike is part of a longer struggle by Georgian workers across the country for better working conditions. But it also follows a broader pattern of young people coming together to protect their political and social rights. In this sense, the active and, to many, unexpected mobilization of young people to protest the Russian-inspired foreign agents law this spring may have been just the tip of an iceberg.
Life for Georgian students has never been easy, but the economic shocks of recent years have made it even worse. Rising inflation and sharp rent increases are making it difficult for students from outside the capital to afford to study in Tbilisi, where most Georgian universities are located. The discontent has led to repeated protests at Georgian universities.
However, recent controversies surrounding Evolution Georgia have led some observers to believe that the issue goes well beyond the labor rights dimension. With few alternatives, thousands of students flocked to gambling companies, a job that many believe exhausts them but offers them few career prospects.
Working in online casinos, call centers and similar areas results in “exhausted, exploited, unprofessional workers who have nowhere else to go but to another similar sector that continues to exploit and exhaust such people,” says Guro Imnadze of the Social Justice Center . a Georgian progressive NGO wrote on Facebook on July 4th.
Imnadze points to the state's responsibility to ensure the proper functioning of the labor market, which requires reforming education, vocational training and employment programs for students. “Evolution [Georgia] is a horror, but let’s not forget that it is part of a larger horror,” he adds.
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