Collective Bargaining in Georgia: The Coverage Nobody Measures

GILS Research Team

Editor: Prof. Giorgi Pkhakadze, MD, MPH, PhD

Georgian Institute of Labour Studies · Rights & Unions

29 August 2026

How many Georgian workers are covered by a collective agreement? No one can say with confidence: Georgia publishes no official statistic on collective bargaining coverage, and figures in circulation are not traceable to a primary source. What the evidence does show is a legal and institutional system in which bargaining is confined to individual enterprises and a few public-sector agreements, with no sectoral bargaining and union membership covering at most around one in six employees. This analysis sets out what is known — and argues that measuring coverage is the first step towards expanding it.

1. Introduction

Collective bargaining is one of the main ways in which workers and employers set pay and conditions above legal minimums. In most EU countries a majority of employees are covered by collective agreements, often at sectoral level. Georgia has ratified ILO Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (FactCheck Georgia, n.d.), but its bargaining system remains thin.

A previous version of this GILS article stated a precise national coverage figure. On review, we could not trace that figure to an official or primary source, and it has been withdrawn. This revised analysis asks what can be established reliably about collective bargaining in Georgia, and what should be done.

2. The Legal Framework

When the Labour Code was adopted in 2006, it abolished the Law on Collective Agreements and Engagements (Compendium of Cultural Policies, n.d.). The Code recognises collective agreements as a source of regulation and leaves their terms to the parties. The 2013 amendments introduced a distinction between individual and collective disputes and conciliation procedures for collective disputes (Social Justice Center, n.d.). The 2020 reform defined the subjects of collective labour relations as one or more employers or employers’ associations and one or more employees’ associations (Labour Code, as amended by Organic Law No. 7177 of 29 September 2020). There is no mechanism for extending sectoral agreements to non-signatory employers.

3. Findings

3.1 No official coverage statistic

Neither Geostat nor the Ministry of Labour publishes data on the number of collective agreements, the number of employees they cover or their content. Without such data, coverage cannot be measured, compared internationally or monitored over time.

3.2 Limited union presence

GTUC reports around 150,000 members in 21 affiliated unions. Against 958,400 hired employees, this implies membership of at most about 15.7% — an upper bound, since some members are pensioners or not in employment (see GILS analysis of union membership). Under the previous administration, GTUC lost more than 100,000 members during what the Solidarity Center describes as a decade-long anti-union campaign (Solidarity Center, 2017).

3.3 Enterprise and public-sector agreements

The agreements that exist are mainly at enterprise level — for example in metallurgy and mining, where GTUC affiliates have agreements with major employers (Solidarity Center, 2017) — and in the public sector. In 2017 the Ministry of Education signed a sectoral agreement with ESFTUG, establishing a framework for cooperation on legislation, collective agreements and teachers’ conditions (Solidarity Center, 2017). There is no evidence of multi-employer sectoral wage agreements in the private sector.

4. Discussion

Argument 1: Without data, there is no policy

The EU directive requires countries with coverage below 80% to adopt an action plan. Georgia cannot assess its position against this benchmark, or design measures to improve it, without first measuring coverage. Registration of collective agreements and publication of basic data would be a simple, low-cost reform.

Argument 2: Enterprise-only bargaining cannot reach most workers

Most Georgian workers are employed in small firms or are self-employed, and around 37% of employment is informal (Pignatti, 2026). Enterprise-level bargaining is unrealistic in micro-enterprises. Sectoral bargaining, with the possibility of extension, is the main route by which European systems achieve high coverage; Georgia has no equivalent.

Counter-argument: flexible labour markets attract investment

Employers and some economists argue that Georgia’s light regulation of collective labour relations has supported investment and growth. Flexibility has value. But the absence of bargaining also leaves wage-setting to individual negotiation in a labour market with high unemployment and underutilisation, where most workers have little bargaining power — one reason low pay persists in large sectors.

5. Limitations

This analysis cannot provide a coverage estimate because no reliable data exist. Information on existing agreements comes from union and civil society sources and is not comprehensive. The union membership figure is an upper bound.

6. Conclusion

Georgia’s collective bargaining coverage is unknown — and that is itself the most important finding. The legal framework supports enterprise bargaining but offers no sectoral structure or extension mechanism, and union presence is limited. Measuring coverage, registering agreements and creating a framework for sectoral bargaining are the necessary first steps, particularly as Georgia’s EU candidacy brings EU benchmarks into view.

GILS analyses are prepared with AI-assisted drafting. All figures and claims are verified against the cited primary sources and reviewed under the responsibility of the Editor.