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Government Building

The Greek parliament has ratified a contentious labor reform that permits 13-hour working days, in the face of fierce resistance and nationwide strike actions.

The administration claimed the law will revamp Greek labor regulations, but critics from the progressive faction described it as a "regulatory disaster."

Main Elements of the New Work Legislation

Under the freshly approved law, yearly extra hours is capped at one hundred and fifty hours, while the regular forty-hour week remains in place.

The government insists that the extended shift is elective, only affects the private sector, and can exclusively be applied 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 centre-left party – now the primary resistance – voting against the legislation, while the left-wing party did not vote.

Worker organizations have staged two general strikes calling for the law's repeal this month that halted public transport and services to a stop.

Government Defense and Employee Safeguards

A senior official defended the legislation, saying the changes bring in line Greek legislation with current labor-market conditions, 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 cannot be dismissed for declining extra hours.

The measure follows European Union working-time regulations, which limit the average workweek to forty-eight hours including overtime but permit flexibility over a year, according to the government.

Opposition Viewpoints and Union Responses

But, critics have charged the administration of eroding employee protections and "pushing the nation back to a medieval work era." They say local employees already work longer hours than the majority of EU citizens while receiving lower pay and still "face financial difficulties."

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

Previous Workplace Changes and Economic Context

In 2024, the country introduced a six-day working week for certain industries in a bid to stimulate economic growth.

New laws, which started at the start of the summer, allow employees to work up to forty-eight hours in a week as opposed to 40.

European Labor Data and National Financial Metrics

• Throughout the European Union in the previous year, the highest working weeks were observed in Greece (39.8 hours), then Bulgaria (39.0), Poland and Romania.
• The lowest work hours in the union is in the Netherlands, as per EU statistics.
• As of this year, Greece's official base pay stood at nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, ranking it in the lower tier among European nations.
• Unemployment, which had peaked at twenty-eight percent during the financial crisis, was 8.1% in the summer versus an EU average of five point nine percent, data from Eurostat show.
• Greece is improving since its prolonged debt crisis, which ended in 2018, but salaries and quality of life continue to be among the poorest in the EU.