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Government Building

Greece's legislature has ratified a hotly debated work legislation that enables 13-hour working days, in the face of fierce opposition and countrywide protests.

Government officials stated the law will modernize the country's labor regulations, but opposition figures from the left-wing faction described it as a "regulatory disaster."

Key Provisions of the New Labor Law

According to the freshly approved legislation, yearly overtime is also at one hundred and fifty hours, while the standard 40-hour week stays unchanged.

Officials maintains that the extended workday is elective, solely affects the private sector, and can exclusively be implemented for up to 37 days each year.

Political Support and Resistance

The recent vote was supported by MPs from the ruling conservative political group, with the centre-left faction – now the main opposition – voting against the legislation, while the left-wing group abstained.

Worker organizations have organized multiple protests demanding the law's repeal recently that halted public transport and services to a stop.

Government Defense and Employee Protections

The Labor Minister supported the legislation, claiming the changes align national legislation with current employment conditions, and alleged critics of misinforming the citizens.

These regulations will provide workers the choice to take on additional hours with the same employer for increased pay, while ensuring they cannot be dismissed for declining extra hours.

This complies with European Union working-time rules, which limit the average workweek to forty-eight hours counting overtime but permit flexibility over 12 months, according to the government.

Opposition Perspectives and Union Responses

However, critics have accused the administration of weakening workers' rights and "driving the country back to a medieval work era." They argue Greek workers currently work longer hours than most EU citizens while earning less and still "struggle to make ends meet."

A major labor organization said variable shifts in reality mean "the abolition of the standard workday, the disruption of family and social life and the authorization of excessive labor."

Recent Workplace Reforms and Financial Background

Last year, Greece enacted a six-day work schedule for specific industries in a bid to stimulate the economy.

New legislation, which started at the beginning of the summer, permit workers to labor up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as opposed to 40.

EU Labor Data and National Economic Indicators

• Across the European Union in the previous year, the longest average hours were recorded in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria, Poland and Romania (38.8).
• The lowest work hours in the bloc is in the Netherlands (32.1), as per Eurostat.
• As of this year, Greece's national base pay stood at nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, ranking it in the lower tier among EU countries.
• Joblessness, which had reached a high at 28% during the financial crisis, was 8.1% in August compared with an EU average of five point nine percent, figures from the statistical office show.
• The country is recovering since its decade-long debt crisis, which concluded in 2018, but salaries and living standards remain among the lowest in the European Union.