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Government Building

The Greek legislature has ratified a hotly debated work legislation that authorizes 13-hour work shifts, despite widespread opposition and countrywide strike actions.

Government officials claimed the law will revamp Greek labor regulations, but opposition figures from the progressive faction labeled it as a "regulatory disaster."

Main Elements of the Recently Passed Labor Law

Under the newly enacted legislation, yearly overtime is capped at one hundred and fifty hours, while the regular 40-hour week stays unchanged.

The government emphasizes that the extended shift is voluntary, only affects the business sector, and can exclusively be used for up to thirty-seven days annually.

Parliamentary Backing and Resistance

The recent ballot was supported by MPs from the ruling centre-right party, with the centre-left party – now the primary opposition – rejecting the bill, while the progressive party abstained.

Worker organizations have staged multiple protests calling for the bill's withdrawal this month that brought transportation and services to a stop.

Government Justification and Worker Protections

The Labor Minister supported the bill, stating the changes align national laws with modern employment realities, and accused opposition leaders of misleading the public.

The laws will give workers the choice to accept additional hours with the current company for 40% higher pay, while guaranteeing they cannot be dismissed for refusing overtime.

This follows EU labor regulations, which cap the mean workweek to forty-eight hours including overtime but allow adjustments over a year, as stated by the government.

Critical Perspectives and Labor Responses

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 work longer hours than the majority of Europeans while earning less and still "face financial difficulties."

A major labor organization said variable shifts 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 enacted a six-day work schedule for certain industries in a bid to stimulate economic growth.

New laws, which came into effect at the start of the summer, permit employees to labor up to 48 hours in a week as instead of 40.

European Labor Data and National Financial Indicators

• Throughout the European Union in the previous year, the longest average hours were observed in the Hellenic Republic, then Bulgaria, Poland (38.9) and Romania (38.8).
• The lowest work hours in the bloc is in the Netherlands (32.1), as per EU statistics.
• As of January 2025, Greece's official base pay was €968 a month, placing it in the lower tier among European nations.
• Unemployment, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the economic downturn, was 8.1% in the summer versus an EU average of five point nine percent, data from Eurostat show.
• Greece is recovering since its decade-long financial troubles, which concluded in recent years, but wages and quality of life continue to be among the lowest in the European Union.