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Government Building

The Greek parliament has ratified a contentious work legislation that authorizes extended-length work shifts, in the face of fierce resistance and nationwide strike actions.

Government officials asserted the law will modernize Greek work laws, but opposition figures from the left-wing faction described it as a "legislative monstrosity."

Key Elements of the Recently Passed Labor Law

Under the freshly approved law, yearly overtime is limited at 150 hours, while the regular 40-hour workweek continues as before.

The government maintains that the extended workday is optional, only affects the business sector, and can exclusively be applied for up to thirty-seven days each year.

Parliamentary Support and Resistance

The recent vote was supported by lawmakers from the ruling conservative party, with the moderate faction – currently the primary resistance – rejecting the bill, while the left-wing party did not vote.

Worker organizations have organized two general strikes demanding the bill's withdrawal this month that halted transportation and services to a stop.

Official Defense and Employee Protections

The Labor Minister defended the bill, saying the reforms bring in line Greek legislation with current employment realities, and accused critics of misinforming the public.

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

The measure complies with European Union working-time rules, which cap the mean workweek to forty-eight hours including overtime but permit flexibility over a year, as stated by the government.

Critical Perspectives and Union Responses

But, opposition parties have accused the administration of weakening workers' rights and "driving the nation back to a labor middle age." They say Greek employees already put in more time than the majority of EU citizens while receiving lower pay and still "face financial difficulties."

A major labor organization said flexible working hours in reality mean "the abolition of the standard workday, the destruction of family and social life and the legalisation of over-exploitation."

Recent Labor Reforms and Financial Background

In 2024, Greece introduced a six-day work schedule for certain industries in a bid to stimulate the economy.

Recent laws, which started at the beginning of July, permit workers to work up to 48 hours in a workweek as opposed to forty.

European Work Data and Greek Financial Indicators

• Throughout the European Union in the previous year, the longest working weeks were recorded in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria (39.0), Poland (38.9) and Romania.
• The lowest working week in the union is in the Netherlands (32.1), as per Eurostat.
• As of January 2025, the nation's national minimum wage was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Unemployment, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the financial crisis, was 8.1% in August versus an EU average of five point nine percent, figures from Eurostat show.
• The country is improving since its decade-long debt crisis, which concluded in 2018, but salaries and living standards remain among the poorest in the European Union.