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Government Building

The Greek parliament has approved a hotly debated work legislation that permits 13-hour working days, in the face of fierce resistance and countrywide protests.

The administration asserted the law will revamp the country's labor regulations, but opposition figures from the progressive faction labeled it as a "legislative monstrosity."

Main Provisions of the New Work Legislation

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

Officials maintains that the extended workday is elective, only applies to the business sector, and can only be applied for up to 37 days each year.

Parliamentary Backing and Resistance

The recent ballot was backed by MPs from the ruling centre-right party, with the moderate party – currently the main resistance – voting against the bill, while the progressive group did not vote.

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

Government Defense and Worker Safeguards

The Labor Minister supported the legislation, claiming the changes bring in line Greek legislation with modern labor-market conditions, and accused opposition leaders of misinforming the public.

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

This complies with EU working-time regulations, which cap the average workweek to forty-eight hours counting overtime but allow flexibility over 12 months, as stated by the government.

Critical Perspectives and Labor Responses

However, opposition parties have accused the administration of eroding employee protections and "pushing the nation back to a labor middle age." They say local workers already put in more time than most EU citizens while receiving lower pay and still "face financial difficulties."

A major labor organization stated variable shifts in practice mean "the abolition of the standard workday, the destruction of personal time and the authorization of excessive labor."

Recent Labor Changes and Economic Background

In 2024, Greece enacted a six-day work schedule for certain industries in a bid to boost economic growth.

New legislation, which came into effect at the beginning of July, allow employees to work up to 48 hours in a workweek as instead of forty.

European Work Statistics and National Financial Metrics

• Throughout the European Union in the previous year, the longest average hours were recorded in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria (39.0), Poland (38.9) and Romania.
• The lowest work hours in the bloc is in the Netherlands, as per EU statistics.
• Starting this year, the nation's official base pay was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Joblessness, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the economic downturn, was eight point one percent in the summer compared with an European mean of 5.9%, figures from Eurostat show.
• Greece is recovering since its decade-long financial troubles, which ended in 2018, but salaries and quality of life remain among the lowest in the EU.