🔗 Share this article

Government Building

Greece's legislature has given the green light a hotly debated work legislation that permits extended-length working days, despite strong opposition and countrywide strike actions.

Government officials claimed the law will update Greek work laws, but opposition figures from the left-wing faction described it as a "regulatory disaster."

Main Provisions of the New Labor Law

Under the newly enacted legislation, yearly overtime is limited at one hundred and fifty hours, while the regular forty-hour workweek remains in place.

The government insists that the longer workday is elective, solely applies to the business sector, and can exclusively be used for up to 37 days annually.

Parliamentary Backing and Opposition

The recent vote was supported by MPs from the governing conservative party, with the moderate party – currently the main resistance – voting against the legislation, while the left-wing group abstained.

Labor unions have organized multiple protests demanding the law's repeal recently that brought public transport and services to a stop.

Government Justification and Employee Safeguards

A senior official supported the bill, saying the reforms align national legislation with current labor-market realities, and accused opposition leaders of misinforming the public.

The laws will give workers the choice to take on extra work with the current company for increased compensation, while ensuring they will not be fired for declining overtime.

This follows European Union labor rules, which cap the mean week to forty-eight hours including extra hours but allow adjustments over 12 months, according to the administration.

Opposition Perspectives and Union Responses

However, opposition parties have accused the government of weakening employee protections and "pushing the country back to a labor middle age." They say local employees already put in more time than the majority of EU citizens while earning less and still "struggle to make ends meet."

A major labor organization stated flexible working hours in reality mean "the end of the standard workday, the destruction of family and social life and the legalisation of excessive labor."

Previous Workplace Changes and Economic Context

In 2024, Greece introduced a six-day work schedule for certain industries in a attempt to stimulate the economy.

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

EU Work Data and Greek Financial Indicators

• Across the European Union in the previous year, the longest working weeks were observed in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria, Poland and Romania (38.8).
• The lowest work hours in the bloc is in the Netherlands (32.1), according to EU statistics.
• As of this year, the nation's official 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 economic downturn, was eight point one percent in the summer compared with an European mean of five point nine percent, data from the statistical office show.
• Greece is improving since its prolonged debt crisis, which ended in 2018, but wages and quality of life remain among the lowest in the EU.