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Government Building

Greece's parliament has given the green light a hotly debated labor reform that authorizes 13-hour working days, in the face of widespread opposition and nationwide protests.

The administration asserted the law will revamp the country's labor regulations, but critics from the progressive faction labeled it as a "harmful law."

Main Elements of the New Labor Law

According to the newly enacted legislation, yearly overtime is also at one hundred and fifty hours, while the regular 40-hour workweek remains in place.

The government insists that the extended shift is elective, solely affects the private sector, and can exclusively be applied for up to thirty-seven days each year.

Parliamentary Support and Resistance

The recent ballot was backed by MPs from the governing centre-right party, with the moderate party – currently the main opposition – voting against the bill, while the left-wing group abstained.

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

Government Defense and Worker Protections

The Labor Minister defended the bill, saying the changes align national laws with current labor-market realities, and accused critics of misleading the citizens.

The laws will provide workers the option to accept extra work with the current company for 40% higher compensation, while ensuring they cannot be fired for declining extra hours.

The measure complies with European Union labor rules, which limit the average week to 48 hours counting overtime but allow adjustments over 12 months, as stated by the government.

Opposition Perspectives and Labor Responses

However, critics 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 most Europeans while earning less and still "face financial difficulties."

The public-sector union said flexible working hours in practice mean "the end of the eight-hour day, the destruction of personal time and the legalisation of excessive labor."

Recent Labor Reforms and Economic Background

In 2024, Greece introduced a six-day working week for specific sectors in a attempt to boost the economy.

Recent laws, which came into effect at the beginning of the summer, allow workers to labor up to 48 hours in a week as instead of forty.

EU Labor Data and Greek Financial Metrics

• Across the European Union in 2024, the highest working weeks were observed in the Hellenic Republic, followed by Bulgaria (39.0), Poland (38.9) and Romania (38.8).
• The shortest work hours in the bloc is in the Netherlands (32.1), according to EU statistics.
• Starting January 2025, Greece's national base pay was €968 a month, ranking it in the bottom group among EU countries.
• Joblessness, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the economic downturn, was 8.1% in the summer versus an European mean of five point nine percent, figures from Eurostat indicate.
• Greece is improving since its decade-long debt crisis, which ended in recent years, but salaries and quality of life remain among the lowest in the European Union.