🔗 Share this article

Government Building

The Greek legislature has approved a contentious labor reform that enables 13-hour work shifts, in the face of widespread resistance and nationwide protests.

Government officials asserted the law will revamp Greek labor regulations, but opposition figures from the left-wing party labeled it as a "legislative monstrosity."

Main Provisions of the New Labor Law

According to the freshly approved law, yearly extra hours is limited at one hundred and fifty hours, while the regular 40-hour workweek continues as before.

Officials insists that the extended shift is optional, only affects the private sector, and can exclusively be applied for up to 37 days annually.

Political Backing and Resistance

The recent vote was backed by lawmakers from the ruling centre-right political group, with the centre-left faction – now the primary resistance – rejecting the legislation, while the left-wing party did not vote.

Worker organizations have staged multiple protests calling for the bill's withdrawal this month that halted public transport and services to a stop.

Government Justification and Employee Protections

The Labor Minister defended the bill, stating the changes align Greek laws with current labor-market conditions, and accused opposition leaders of misleading the public.

The laws will give employees the choice to take on additional hours with the current company for 40% higher pay, while guaranteeing they cannot be dismissed for declining overtime.

The measure follows European Union labor regulations, which limit the mean workweek to 48 hours including overtime but permit adjustments over 12 months, according to the government.

Opposition Viewpoints and Union Responses

However, opposition parties have accused the government of eroding workers' rights and "pushing the country back to a labor middle age." They argue Greek employees already put in more time than the majority of Europeans while receiving lower pay and still "face financial difficulties."

A major labor organization said flexible working hours in practice mean "the end of the standard workday, the disruption of personal time and the authorization of over-exploitation."

Recent Labor Changes and Financial Context

In 2024, the country enacted a six-day working week for specific sectors in a attempt to boost economic growth.

Recent legislation, which came into effect at the beginning of the summer, permit employees to labor up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as opposed to forty.

EU Labor Data and National Financial Indicators

• Across the European Union in the previous year, the longest working weeks were observed in the Hellenic Republic, then Bulgaria, Poland (38.9) and Romania (38.8).
• The lowest work hours in the union is in the Netherlands, according to EU statistics.
• As of this year, the nation's official base pay was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, ranking it in the lower tier among European nations.
• Joblessness, which had peaked at 28% during the financial crisis, was 8.1% in the summer versus an European mean of 5.9%, figures from Eurostat show.
• Greece is improving since its prolonged debt crisis, which ended in 2018, but salaries and living standards remain among the lowest in the European Union.