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Government Building

Greece's parliament has given the green light a hotly debated work legislation that enables 13-hour work shifts, despite widespread opposition and nationwide protests.

The administration stated the law will modernize the country's work laws, but critics from the progressive party described it as a "harmful law."

Key Elements of the New Work Legislation

According to the freshly approved law, annual overtime is limited at 150 hours, while the regular forty-hour workweek stays unchanged.

The government maintains that the longer shift is elective, only affects the private sector, and can exclusively be used for up to 37 days each year.

Political Support and Resistance

Thursday's ballot was supported by MPs from the ruling centre-right party, with the centre-left party – currently the main resistance – voting against the bill, while the left-wing group did not vote.

Worker organizations have organized multiple protests calling for the bill's withdrawal recently that brought public transport and public services to a stop.

Official Justification and Employee Safeguards

A senior official supported the legislation, stating the changes bring in line Greek laws with modern labor-market realities, and alleged critics of misleading the citizens.

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

This follows European Union working-time rules, which limit the mean week to forty-eight hours counting extra hours but allow adjustments over a year, as stated by the administration.

Critical Perspectives and Labor Reactions

But, opposition parties have accused the administration of eroding workers' rights and "pushing the nation back to a medieval work era." They say Greek workers already work longer hours than the majority of EU citizens while receiving lower pay and still "struggle to make ends meet."

The public-sector union said flexible working hours in practice mean "the abolition of the standard workday, the destruction of family and social life and the legalisation of excessive labor."

Previous Labor Reforms and Financial Context

Last year, Greece enacted a six-day work schedule for certain sectors in a bid to stimulate economic growth.

New legislation, which started at the start of July, permit employees to labor up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as opposed to forty.

EU Work Statistics and National Economic Indicators

• Across the EU in 2024, the highest working weeks were observed in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.
• The shortest work hours in the union is in the Netherlands, according to Eurostat.
• Starting January 2025, Greece's national base pay stood at €968 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 August versus an European mean of 5.9%, data from the statistical office show.
• The country is improving since its decade-long debt crisis, which ended in 2018, but wages and living standards remain among the lowest in the EU.