For more than a month, thousands of employees of online gambling company Evolution have been on strike in Tbilisi, Georgia, protesting wages, harassment allegations and unsafe working conditions.
The strike began on July 12, but intensified in August. Initially, says Giorgi Diasamidze, head of the Labor Workers’ Union, the company threatened that the strike would result in a complete withdrawal from the country. (Company lay off 1000 employees (After the strike was announced.) However, when striking workers escalated their protest in mid-August, trying to block the entrance to the building, Diasamidze and the workers who spoke to WIRED say that plainclothes private security guards hired by the company beat up the strikers.
“They hide their identity. They didn’t care about gender. [I know people] who have bruises, who have difficulty walking,” Diasamidze says. Photos and video shared with WIRED show perceptible bruises and blisters caused by the guards’ aggressive behavior toward the workers, as well as a guard violently pulling a worker off a bench.
A handful of workers, including Mahare Patashuri, have gone on hunger strike. “I can’t believe I’m still alive,” Patashuri told WIRED in August. Last week, Patashuri was hospitalized after going 28 days without food.
Evolution spokesman Carl Linton said in a written statement that the company “has been working and will continue to work to resolve the dispute within the established process and local law. Evolution strongly supports and respects the right of employees to strike within the local legal framework.”
“The union’s decision to illegally block entrances to working employees, violating their rights under Georgian law,” he continued. “We have faced challenges in maintaining full operational capacity. As the blockade continues, the disruption has forced us to review our presence in Georgia, including through layoffs. This review was not prompted by the strike itself, but is a direct consequence of the illegal actions taken by the union.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Evolution is reportedly in talks with the Nevada Gaming Control Board to obtain a license to operate in Las Vegas, the most valuable gaming market in the U.S. (The company has not commented on the talks.)
While the strikes continue to attract attention in the country and in Sweden, where the company is headquartered, the company seems largely unconcerned, though workers hope their struggles will be taken into account by U.S. regulators.
Evolution has a license to operate in several US states, as well as in several European countries. But Nevada would be a special coup — the state has introduced over 15 billion dollars in gambling revenues in 2023 alone. Earlier this year, Evolution acquires tabletop gaming provider Galaxy Gamingunder which it applies for a license to operate in Las Vegas.
Kirk Hendrick, chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said licensing procedures are confidential and declined to comment further when WIRED contacted him about Evolution’s application.
The Nevada Culinary Workers Local and the Nevada Bartenders Union, which together represent about 60,000 casino workers in Las Vegas and Reno, have come out in support of the striking workers. A union official shared the group’s joint information public statement in which he “calls on the Nevada Gaming Commission to deny Evolution’s application if the company continues to refuse to treat its employees with respect and provide them with fair wages and safe working conditions.”