Physical assault, slapping on the bottom, swearing and verbal abuse, stereotypical attitudes – this is just a small list of what women employed in the service sector face. Their labor rights are violated when employers pay low wages, work overtime, work in inappropriate conditions, and when they become victims of gender-based discrimination – be it the wage gap, giving preference to men in managerial positions, sexual harassment, or derogatory phrases based on gender.

Women face these problems every day in various professions, but when it comes to the service sector, they face a similar attitude not only from employers and employees, but also from customers. In this article, women who have to communicate with customers every day due to their work, in taxis, restaurants and hotels, will share their experiences. We will discuss the existing challenges with Raisa Lipartaliani, Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Confederation of Trade Unions and a lawyer.

Blackmail, Insults and Comments on Appearance

Our respondent, who wished to remain anonymous, has 15 years of experience working in the service sector. She was 16 when she decided to start a seasonal job, providing citizens with information about the advertising offers of a particular company. After that, she worked in a cafe, a traditional Georgian restaurant, a lounge, a club — both as a waiter and as a manager. Her many years of career in Batumi and Tbilisi were accompanied by an unfair, toxic environment and numerous forms of labor rights violations, including when she was a minor.

“The first job was to offer cards from one of the companies. Our obligation was to introduce the product to citizens and then fill out the application. We were paid 300 GEL per month, and after every 10 applications we filled out, we were credited with a percentage of the income. I worked at a facility on the Boulevard in Batumi. We needed to fill out our ID data, sometimes they didn’t have their ID with them, and since they couldn’t fill out this data, we gave them a work number so they could sign up later. In many cases, they would use this number for other purposes, flirting and texting would start,” recalls Natia (name changed).

“There was a case when I gave a customer my work number to fill out the form and he started calling me, bullying me, and blackmailing me. I don’t know who it was, but he told me that if I didn’t meet him, he knew where I lived, would come to my home, and tell my family that I was living a “not innocent, dishonest” life.”

The implication is that everyone she was applying for on these cards were adults — people much older than her. She had to deal with the problems herself.

“I was young then and I didn’t know, and no one told me that if someone bothers you or you feel pressured, let us know. I didn’t feel like turning to anyone either. I dealt with it myself.”

They often wrote to me: “How beautiful you are, introduce yourself, I’m the one on the boulevard who filled out the application.” I would write a refusal, I wouldn’t write at all, or I would lie that I had a boyfriend and they would leave me alone.”

She also worked seasonally as an ice cream vendor on the boulevard in the summer. She says that even then there were inappropriate comments from passersby, but she easily dealt with them. Problems arose when she started looking for a job in the restaurant industry and got a job. Natia’s experience combines gender discrimination during interviews and inappropriate comments about her appearance.

“There was a moment during an interview at a restaurant in Tbilisi that I still remember: the manager told me that they were looking for men. When I asked what that meant, he replied that men have more patience — a waiter should carry a tray and walk around, but they still prefer a boy. I asked him why they didn’t say this in the vacancy. They probably knew that this attitude was wrong and that’s why they didn’t say it publicly. They didn’t hire me because I wasn’t a boy.

There was another job where I went for an interview and was told that they wouldn’t hire me because of my weight, because they didn’t have a uniform my size. It happened at a sushi bar in Tbilisi.

“There was a time when they didn’t hire me because of my hair color. I had blue hair at the time, and they said, ‘We can’t hire a girl with blue hair.'”

Raisa Liparteliani, Deputy Chairperson of the Federation of Trade Unions, says that in recent years, a number of changes have been made to labor legislation, which were focused on women’s rights and gender equality issues. Nevertheless, gender inequality in the labor market remains a major challenge to this day, and this is evident at all stages, both during employment and in subsequent labor relations.

“Statistics suggest that in addition to legislative problems, stereotypical attitudes towards the roles of women and men are also a problem. Although such practices may be relatively rare, we are still approached by women who claim that the employer gave preference to a man even in cases of the same or better qualifications. The questions they heard in the interview, which were related to family responsibilities and future plans for marriage, make them legitimately believe that this has become a determining factor when making employment decisions,” says Liparteliani.

After several unsuccessful experiences in Tbilisi, Natia found a job in Batumi. She worked in one of the most famous cafe-restaurants in the seaside city, which is popular both for its good atmosphere and food, and for the owner’s campaign on social media — this campaign creates the impression that there is a pleasant and friendly environment there. However, Natia’s experience is radically different. She says that the rights of all employees were violated and the manager was rude and aggressive. According to her, this was manifested in tactless remarks in the presence of guests, dismissals for personal reasons, throwing things in the kitchen, shouting, abusive language, overtime work and low pay.

“There were cases when he threw meat in the trash that the cooks had spoiled and told them to take it out, make food for the staff, feed it to them, and eat it themselves.”

It also happened that some waiters smoked cigarettes in a place where smoking was not allowed. To find out, he forced a waiter who was not a smoker to snitch on others. He knew this very well, but he blamed them and threatened to fine them if they didn’t snitch.

“You stupid,” “Get out of here” — such disgusting attitudes were common from him. It was a humiliating and insulting environment for everyone. There was no self-defense mechanism other than fighting back. Fighting back would have consequences — it’s not easy to lose your job.”

Natia cites several cases as examples. The employer required the cleaner to take care of the animals that were in these spaces and clean up their feces, in addition to cleaning the yard, terrace, and balcony. According to her, a chef was fired only because he did not have time to bake a cake for the employer’s son by 12 o’clock.

“The most toxic environment I’ve ever worked in was a job where people were not treated like human beings, were worked like slaves, were not paid properly, and were abused. It was an environment where everyone’s rights were violated, from the manager to the janitor.

All this is not visible from the outside. When a guest arrives, they cannot imagine the state of the waiter who greets them with a smile, or the chef who prepares the dish for them.”

Natia says that customers didn’t notice the problems because the owner was very good at manipulating. He often wrote positive posts about the employees on Facebook: “It was good PR and it worked out well, that’s why he did it, not because he was crazy about the staff. However, from the outside it seemed like it was very nice. I started working there because from the outside it seemed like a very nice environment.”

After working as a waitress, Natia became a manager and tried not to interfere in the owner’s internal affairs in order to protect the employees. She recalls that during the Covid pandemic, when everything was closed, the owner quietly operated the restaurant, and Natia had to simultaneously play the roles of waitress, manager, bartender, and cashier. At that time, her salary was 20 GEL per day.

“When I became a manager, I tried not to interfere in internal matters, and I was the one who got the most because I was responsible. The chef didn’t have a kitchen. The manager’s duties were not at all, but when the kitchen was so-called “garyachka”, that is, busy time, the manager would let me help. I would help the cooks prepare food, or I would sort out the checks, and I would distribute the chef’s duties.

“I, the manager, who is the face of the institution and should smell of the kitchen, used to go to the people like this. We would go into the kitchen in ordinary clothes, we didn’t have any change of clothes or hygienic clothes. But there were documents confirming all the hygiene standards and the so-called public control had also been passed.”

Natia has had negative experiences in other jobs as well — not only from her supervisor, but also from customers.

“I worked in a Georgian restaurant, where the manager insulted the waiters and made inappropriate comments. For example, I was told not to wear my hair like this or that. We’re not talking about loose hair here, because we didn’t wear it loose anyway. These were unnecessary comments about how it wasn’t pretty and that it would suit me better otherwise.

In my opinion, the manager has no right to tell you this at all. How I wear my hair is none of their business. As I said, I can answer back, so it didn’t happen again after I told him it was none of his business and it was up to me to decide. The same person was giving the guys anotes about hygiene at our meetings, insultingly telling them that they smelled.”

Natia also emphasizes that it is a problem when there is no security in restaurants and waiters have to deal with intoxicated guests themselves.

“I had a seasonal job in one of the lounges, I was a service manager. We didn’t have security, which was very bad, because where there is live music, where people drink, there must be security. It is needed everywhere, but where alcohol is sold and there is drinking, it is essential.”

Two drunk people came in, they wanted to bring in drinks. According to our rules, this was not allowed. I asked them to leave the bottle outside or hand it in and I would take it out when they left. They had a terrible reaction, saying, what is this, we are Georgian. I don’t know what this has to do with it, why was Georgianness a guarantee of breaking the rules. They started fighting, I don’t remember the exact words, but we had a conflict.

Bartenders and other employed guys got involved because they were insulting us. By the time the security police arrived, they had already been taken outside. The investigation continued outside and then these guys left. If there had been security, they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to do so much.”

Raisa Liparteliani says that hiring security guards in this area still remains a problem. According to her, at first glance, one might assume that a problem caused by a guest is not an issue that falls under the responsibility of the state or the employer, since it is difficult to insure risks that arise from a third party, but in reality this is not the case.

“Places such as shops, restaurants, hotels, and services are required to have security guards. However, if we look closely, we will see that pharmacy chains, which operate around the clock, do not have security guards. Hotels have security guards, but in this case the reason is to protect the employer’s property, not the rights of the employees. Such conditions have led to cases of violence.

It is enough to stand in line in any market to see what kind of aggression appears towards the staff, the addressees of which are not actually these people. The fact that they have to work in overloaded conditions, doing many things at once, is not their problem. This field is also characterized by the fact that a person hired for one position is assigned too many tasks at once. It is physically impossible to cope and, of course, causes customer dissatisfaction, irritation and increases the risk of physical violence against them.

Therefore, the employer, yes, has a duty to create a safe environment for the employee. This does not only mean that the ventilation and temperature regime are set correctly — it also means protecting employees from threats from third parties,” explains Liparteliani.

Natia has also had experiences where security guards failed to prevent problems and responded to verbal and physical abuse post-facto. For example, her last place of employment was a club where sex workers also frequented and offered services to guests. There were often cases when male guests of the club insulted waiters and sex workers.

She recalls a case when a middle-aged customer approached her and asked her questions about her family. She thought he was a family friend and joined the conversation: “Then he started saying, ‘Don’t get me wrong, but why don’t we spend the night together?’ He was about 15 years older than me, I was wearing a waiter’s uniform and it was easy to tell that I was employed. I protested, ‘What are you doing?’ and he replied, ‘No, not for free, I’ll pay you.’ When I got angry, and said he was being disrespectful, I don’t know why, but he replied, sorry, sister, I made a mistake.’”

She didn’t talk to security about the incident. She was new at the time and knew from other waiters that “it won’t lead anywhere.” Now she thinks it was a mistake. There have been several instances of abuse from customers since then, and security sometimes responded, sometimes not.

“A security guard once said to me, ‘What do you think, if you walk around with makeup and no ring?’ He made me the guilty in how men behaved.”

There were cases when annoying behavior and attempts at sexual harassment escalated into physical contact. Natia says that several customers slapped her on the bottom: “I didn’t leave any unanswered. Sometimes I handled it myself, and there were times when I called security and they asked me to leave the area. The security guard’s duty is to make the staff feel safe first. That didn’t always happen. They were especially careful with Georgians. When it came to foreigners, it was easy for them to resolve. I don’t understand how Georgians are such a big deal that you have to take everything into account because of that.”

She also remembers cases when a customer who had behaved inappropriately was allowed back into the club because he knew the owners. Accordingly, the employees did not feel safe. In such cases, she would protect herself and not serve the people who treated her badly.

“There were VIP guests who could have been insulting and there was no appropriate response,” says Natia, recalling a case when a customer first insulted an employee, and a few days later, her too. Despite this, the security guards allowed this person into the establishment without any problems. The same thing happened again when the guest slapped Natia and blamed her for the attack. Despite the fact that the incident was clearly visible in the footage and the manager supported Natia, this person was still allowed into the club because he was “an acquaintance of the boss.”

She decided to work in these difficult conditions because of the good pay and her love of music. At the end of the interview, when she thought she had shared all her negative experiences with us and we asked her to assess the general situation, she remembered another incident when, while working at the cash register in another club, a customer cursed at her for refusing to let his minor companion enter.

She says that the main problem in this field is the feeling of insecurity. The behavior of consumers is determined by their lack of education and inner culture.

“A person employed in the service field does not feel safe. The employer must ensure my well-being so that the guest is also satisfied. And my well-being must be ensured not only financially, but I must have a normal break, meals, and a day off.”

“At my last job, there were weeks during the season when we couldn’t rest at all. Imagine working in a nightclub for 2 weeks straight, without a break. But the night shift is much more difficult. When it’s night shift, a person should not work every night, but once every 2-3 days.”

The most important message that Natia wanted to convey is that “the guest is not always right.”

Sexual Harassment and Victim Blaming

Another of our respondents, given the pseudonym Anna, is 26 years old and has been working in the service sector for the past 9 years. She worked in the restaurant sector as a service employee for 6 years, and in the hotel business for the past 3 years in the sales and events department. As a woman, she has repeatedly become a target of inappropriate treatment. For example, in one of the companies, the director harassed her and bothered her with unnecessary communications — in addition to sending messages about work during non-working hours, late at night, he had a familiar way of doing it, and used various types of so-called emojis, hearts, which was unpleasant from a manager.

“It reflected very badly on the work process. I replied to the first message and dismissed it. I understood what it was about, but it was my boss… The second time such correspondence occurred, I ignored it. When I met him at work, I felt uncomfortable, even considering that he was in a high position, such a great person with children and grandchildren… I would have been upset no matter what the situation was, but it was my job and, unfortunately, I did not have the luxury of leaving.”

Anna says that the company had an HR department, but she didn’t talk to them because she was a “representative of the director’s circle and acquaintances” and expected trouble. She talked to a middle manager, who expressed support, although she couldn’t take any specific action either: “I wasn’t the only victim. There were other people too.”

After this incident, she worked at the company for a year. When she received a better offer, she decided to leave the toxic environment. Over the years, she has changed many places of employment, but she has never encountered a completely healthy environment. There was a case when a restaurant guest insulted her and the employer, instead of responding appropriately, blamed Anna.

“I was a supervisor in a fairly successful and leading restaurant in Tbilisi. I worked the night shift on weekends. It wasn’t that late, 11-12 o’clock. There was no one in the restaurant, my boyfriend was sitting outside, who would sometimes visit me and we would talk in our free time. There were no restrictions on this from the management.

A man entered the restaurant space, accompanied by security. He was in a state of intoxication, most likely under the influence of alcohol. He extended his hand to me, saying, “I’ll kiss your hand.” I didn’t want him to kiss me, neither professionally nor unprofessionally, and I politely extended my hand to shake his. He got angry at this, there was a station nearby, he kicked it, then dug out some plants.

It happened in a matter of seconds. I left the hall, moved to the back, called security, and they took control of the situation. I was very nervous. First, because of this person’s behavior, and then because I didn’t want my boyfriend to see it and make the situation even more tense. I felt unsafe.”

Anna says that the aggressive person was taken away by his own security. The restaurant area was damaged. She had to write a report about the incident and submit it to the management. Instead of support, she received criticism from the management.

“The management’s response was that if my boyfriend wasn’t outside, I would have let the guest kiss my hand, and what happened wouldn’t have happened. What was my boyfriend involved in? I don’t want a stranger to kiss my hand. I don’t want to, and that’s it. It’s my decision, my right.”

She says that she was young at the time, didn’t know much, and didn’t express much protest. She thought that if she kept quiet, they would consider her a good employee.

According to Raisa Liparteliani, people are reluctant to approach their employer with problems because they have no hope of support. On the contrary, there is a fear that what happened might be attributed to the employee’s personal characteristics, as if he or she is unable to provide the appropriate quality of service, and they might be fired from their job altogether.

“We have had such cases many times. Among them, from a pharmacy chain, when a person was fired because she allegedly had “incorrect” communication with a client, although it was later proven in court that this was not the case.”

Whether it is the court, the inspection or other mechanisms, people rarely resort to it. In addition to the fact that they do not have information, they do not have trust and, which is very important, time. This is emotional, time and financial resources. We provide this assistance free of charge, but resources are limited, just like those of other organizations. At least a person must pay the state fee, and if he does not have money, how will he pay it? Often this is also a problem. In reality, what looks good on paper is very difficult to realize in practice. As for judicial practice, I do not know what will happen now, but so far 98% of labor disputes in our organization were resolved in favor of employees. According to general statistics, about 70%,” Liparteliani explains.

According to her assessment, it is also noteworthy that labor disputes are often related not to discrimination, harassment, violence, or overtime work, but to dismissal.

“They argue in extreme cases, when firing the person is on the agenda.”

According to Anna, despite the customer’s behavior causing moral and psychological harm, no one in the company took any steps to eliminate the problem. Moreover, this aggressive person came to the restaurant at a different time.

“The owner was quite a famous person. Famous people used to go to his establishments. During one of the music events, I saw this person again with his bodyguard. I told my manager about it and their reaction was that they were shocked: “Wow, him? This wouldn’t happen. This guy doesn’t act that way.”

“I told them to rewind the cameras and check them. I didn’t have any contact with him that day, but I didn’t feel safe.”

Anna says that after these experiences, she could sense the problems ahead and tried to avoid them. Instead of employers providing a healthy environment, female employees had to fend for themselves.

“In the service industry, you can always run into a rude person when you’re serving someone and they act strangely because of their post-Soviet mindset. I’ve had the opportunity to avoid it, so that a guy would serve a specific table instead of me. I would avoid them as much as I could.”

When my manager noticed that there were this kind of men at the table, she let the boys serve that table and we had a bit of a support about it, but it’s bad that you have to do this.”

She says that the institution where she currently works also has problems, but she is coping. She expects that there will be many more similar challenges in this industry.

“Unfortunately, I’ve learned that I’m a woman and I’ll always have to shake off these kinds of attitudes.”

“I think we women still have a lot to prove. That standing out is not a good thing, and that we can do more than men, not less, both psychologically and physically.”

“We can do a lot, we can set new standards. There are many women in this industry who can be examples of our success, who we should emulate. There will still be sad cases that we need to speak out about and fight injustice,” says Anna.

Stereotypes in a Male-Dominated Field

“I always argue that men drive inadequately. There are good female and male drivers, I can’t divide them like that. But women are more careful. Men pull over when it’s not their turn, women may not do this because they are keeping order. At first I drove like that too, now I’m a bit of a hooligan driver,” says 43-year-old Nona Megrelishvili, who has been a taxi driver for 3 years.

“I think women are said to not know how to drive because they do it properly. I’m not saying this because I’m a woman. I see how men driving during the day. You know why they are obsessed with women? They have low self-esteem and are afraid of women. Georgian women have always been leaders, Georgian men don’t admit that. Women took us through the 90s, and even now, my friends around me earn more than their husbands and work more than their husbands. I’m the same way, I don’t complain about anything, the main thing is that my children don’t lack anything, but I won’t do it in a way that makes my husband sit around at home and I have to work.”

Before she started working as a taxi driver, she was an employee at a chain store. She says she noticed that she was working too hard, getting tired, and earning less than her husband, who was a taxi driver. She decided to try it herself, but her husband was against it.

“I worked like a donkey. When I told my husband at home that I would also work as a taxi driver, he said I get a thousand crazy people in my car. I told him that I was even crazier, and that they would get out the same way they got in if they did anything that was too much. He didn’t agree. I realized that it was not an easy thing to believe.

I had a two-week vacation in the summer, I didn’t go on vacation and decided to try it out quietly. If I hadn’t learned how to drive a taxi, I wouldn’t have lost that job for nothing. I told my husband that I would start working for a delivery service and save two kopecks for school. I didn’t tell him that I had downloaded a taxi app. Okay, if you don’t want to take a vacation, that’s your choice, he said. I went out to deliver during my vacation, but it did not work out well and I switched to a taxi app. Wow, what a great thing it turned out to be! I made my one-month salary in four days,” says Nona and adds: “I really liked the taste of money, and my own money. I started to have hope for myself.”

She says that in the early stages of working as a taxi driver, she encountered stereotypical attitudes many times, but recently this has stopped happening.

“I picked up a passenger at the bus stop in Varketili. A young boy was getting in and an elderly man standing next to him said something to him. When this boy got in, he was laughing. I said, ‘Do you see anything funny?’ I thought he was making fun of me. No, did you not understand what this man said to me? He realized that you were a taxi driver and called out to me, aren’t you afraid to get in her car? That degenerate. Finally, this boy said to me, ‘If that gentleman had seen how quickly you drove me, he wouldn’t have said that.'”

Now, when many young women and men see me, they say how happy they are that there things are changing a bit for good, and that women are drivers. They tell me that in other countries, they have seen that women were driving buses and taxis, and were jealous. They think that here women are only destined for kitchen.”

Although she has not had any problems with drunk passengers herself, she says she has heard many bad stories. Including from a female relative who is also a taxi driver. At the same time, female passengers have also told of cases of harassment by male drivers.

Raisa Liparteliani explains that women face numerous barriers before they even start working due to stereotypes and predetermined gender roles, but even when they overcome these barriers, they encounter other obstacles. The most pronounced of these is the wage gap.

“The wage gap encapsulates all the inequalities and problems that women face in the labor market. For example, even if they do find employment and have access to it, statistics show that women are mainly concentrated in low-paid sectors, or we can say the opposite — in sectors where women traditionally work, wages are low, for example, healthcare, education, social protection, textiles.

However, we also have cases where women in the same field have lower salaries than men. This is everywhere, in all sectors, at different levels. Including in the public sector, where salaries are tied to position pay.”

Raisa Liparteliani notes that it is difficult to say where labor rights are most frequently violated, but there are sectors where risks increase.

“It was believed that the public service was more protected, but we can no longer say that. It is difficult to single out certain sectors, but where employees have face-to-face communication with customers, the risks of harassment and violence are higher.”

We can single out services because they are vulnerable in terms of job stability. On the one hand, these are easily accessible jobs, as they do not require particularly high qualifications, but they are also easily replaceable. Protest and publicizing this in such sectors is even more difficult.

Raisa also talks about sexual harassment in the workplace and notes that studies show alarming statistics, and what’s especially bad is that the real picture is much more severe, because even in conditions of confidentiality, women find it difficult to talk about it.

In addition, according to Raisa Liparteliani, in the reality of our country, during crises, both at the national and company levels, women are the ones who suffer the most.

“When reorganizations are planned, the employer has to find criteria by which to select these people — who to keep in the job and who to fire. We also see in these practices that women are oppressed — for example, because the employer does not expect that if necessary, a woman will be able to work overtime, travel on business trips, because she has the burden of family responsibilities.”

► Read more about this topic: What Is Home Labor and What Are Women’s Experiences?

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If you believe that your labor rights are being violated and you are being sexually harassed at work, you can contact the company’s HR or your immediate supervisor. If this is not possible for a number of reasons, you can contact the Public Defender, the Labor Inspectorate, or human rights organizations, where you will be provided with legal advice and assistance. 

• Public Defender’s Office: 1481 / 032 299 58 98 /
• Partnership for Human Rights: +995 32 233 13 56
• Sapari: 599 40 76 03
• Women’s Initiatives Support Group (WISG): 595 190 303