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Government Building

Greece's legislature has ratified a hotly debated labor reform that enables extended-length work shifts, in the face of widespread resistance and countrywide strike actions.

The administration stated the law will modernize Greek work laws, but opposition figures from the left-wing party labeled it as a "harmful law."

Main Provisions of the New Work Legislation

According to the newly enacted legislation, yearly overtime is also at 150 hours, while the standard forty-hour workweek stays unchanged.

The government insists that the extended shift is elective, only applies to the private sector, and can exclusively be used for up to 37 days annually.

Political Backing and Opposition

Thursday's vote was backed by MPs from the ruling centre-right party, with the moderate party – currently the primary resistance – rejecting the legislation, while the left-wing party did not vote.

Labor unions have staged multiple protests demanding the law's repeal this month that halted public transport and services to a stop.

Official Defense and Worker Safeguards

The Labor Minister supported the bill, claiming the changes bring in line Greek laws with modern labor-market conditions, and accused opposition leaders of misleading the citizens.

The laws will give workers the choice to take on extra work with the current company for 40% higher compensation, while guaranteeing they cannot be fired for declining extra hours.

The measure follows EU working-time regulations, which cap the average workweek to forty-eight hours counting extra hours but permit flexibility over a year, according to the administration.

Critical Viewpoints and Labor Reactions

But, opposition parties have charged the government of weakening workers' rights and "pushing the country back to a labor middle age." They say local employees already work longer hours than the majority of Europeans while receiving lower pay and still "struggle to make ends meet."

A major labor organization stated variable shifts in practice mean "the abolition of the eight-hour day, the disruption of personal time and the legalisation of excessive labor."

Previous Labor Changes and Financial Context

Last year, Greece introduced a six-day work schedule for certain industries in a attempt to boost the economy.

Recent laws, which came into effect at the beginning of July, permit employees to labor up to forty-eight hours in a week as instead of 40.

European Labor Data and Greek Economic Metrics

• Across the EU in 2024, the longest average hours were observed in Greece (39.8 hours), then Bulgaria, Poland (38.9) and Romania (38.8).
• The shortest work hours in the union is in the Netherlands, according to EU statistics.
• Starting this year, Greece's national base pay was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the bottom group among EU countries.
• Unemployment, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the financial crisis, was eight point one percent in August compared with an EU average of 5.9%, data from Eurostat indicate.
• Greece is improving since its decade-long debt crisis, which concluded in 2018, but salaries and living standards remain among the lowest in the EU.