🔗 Share this article

Government Building

The Greek legislature has given the green light a disputed work legislation that authorizes extended-length work shifts, despite widespread resistance and nationwide strike actions.

Government officials asserted the law will update the country's labor regulations, but opposition figures from the left-wing party described it as a "harmful law."

Key Elements of the Recently Passed Labor Law

Under the freshly approved law, annual overtime is limited at 150 hours, while the regular forty-hour workweek remains in place.

The government maintains that the longer shift is elective, only affects the private sector, and can exclusively be applied for up to thirty-seven days annually.

Parliamentary Backing and Opposition

The recent ballot was backed by MPs from the governing conservative party, with the moderate faction – currently the main resistance – rejecting the bill, while the left-wing party abstained.

Labor unions have organized multiple protests demanding the bill's withdrawal this month that halted transportation and public services to a stop.

Government Justification and Worker Protections

The Labor Minister supported the bill, claiming the reforms bring in line national laws with current employment realities, and alleged critics of misleading the public.

The laws will provide workers the option to take on extra work with the same employer for increased pay, while ensuring they will not be dismissed for refusing extra hours.

This follows EU labor regulations, which cap the mean workweek to 48 hours counting overtime but permit flexibility over 12 months, according to the administration.

Critical Viewpoints and Union Reactions

But, opposition parties have accused the administration of eroding workers' rights and "pushing the nation back to a labor middle age." They say Greek workers already put in more time than the majority of Europeans while earning less and still "face financial difficulties."

The public-sector union stated variable shifts in reality mean "the end of the standard workday, the destruction of personal time and the legalisation of excessive labor."

Recent Labor Changes and Economic Context

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

Recent laws, which came into effect at the start of the summer, allow workers to labor up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as instead of 40.

European Work Data and National Economic Indicators

• Across the EU in the previous year, the longest working weeks were observed in the Hellenic Republic, followed by Bulgaria, Poland (38.9) and Romania.
• The shortest working week in the union is in the Netherlands (32.1), as per Eurostat.
• As of January 2025, Greece's national base pay was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Unemployment, which had peaked at 28% during the financial crisis, was eight point one percent in August compared with an European mean of 5.9%, data from Eurostat indicate.
• The country is improving since its decade-long debt crisis, which concluded in recent years, but wages and living standards continue to be among the poorest in the European Union.