Exporting paper tigers? The effects of formal convergence with the EU labour law on working conditions in Georgia

The launch of the European Pillar of Social Rights underscores the EU’s ambition to promote equality and fairness in the contexts of working conditions, access to labour market, and social protection. However, social rights are often referred to as “paper tigers” lacking teeth and claws (see Hepple 2007; Adams-Parssl 2020). Yet, these paper tigers are still exported to the candidate countries. In 2020, Georgia, as an EU associated country, introduced a comprehensive set of amendments to the labour code in an attempt to comply with the EU social acquis. It is, however, unclear what effects, if any, this increased convergence with the EU labour law had on working conditions in the country. This paper explores whether there is an observable improvement of working conditions in Georgia following the increased formal convergence of Georgian legislation with the EU social acquis. For this purpose, the paper will use a new measurement tool to evaluate the degree of formal convergence. The tool is based on the analysis of over a hundred EU legal documents and the labour code of Georgia. After the evaluation of legislation, the paper will look into further empirical data focusing on workplace safety and fair working conditions, which are arguably some of the most important provisions in social acquis. Based on the analysis of reports published by the Labour Inspection Office of Georgia between 2018 and 2023, the paper will shed light on patterns of changes if any. This analysis will be complemented with a comparative case study of workers’ protests that took place before and after the legislative amendments. These cases include strikes by miners in 2019 and 2023. This will allow to evaluate to what extent the increased formal convergence has “empowered” workers (see Ferrara, Corti and Keune 2023) to increase their bargaining power in the context of their conflict with the employer. As a result, the paper will contribute to understanding how formal convergence translates into increased protection of workers and/or their increased empowerment.