ATHENS – A six-day 48-hour work week in Greece that began July 1 for private companies in the industrial and manufacturing business or those that have 24-hour seven day shifts is drawing howls from unions and critics.

The pro-business New Democracy government said it’s a necessary response to deal with a shortage of skilled workers because of an exodus during a 2010-18 economic and austerity crisis and that it provides bonuses for overtime work.

While many Greeks in private businesses are pressured into working extra hours, often without being paid and fearful of losing their jobs, the government said the measure would now protect them without indicating how it would be enforced.

In a review of the law that’s drawing scrutiny across the European Union – where there are pushes for 4-day 32-hour work weeks whose proponents said increases productivity – the New York Times said that Greece has gone the other way.

The population is also aging fast as incentives for families to have more children haven’t succeeded as they still aren’t enough to deal with high food prices and the cost of living, putting pressure on the social security system too.

The 6-day week would also be allowed only “in exceptional circumstances,” such as an unforeseen workload, the paper noted, although it also wasn’t said how that would be monitored with Greece lagging in job site inspections.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/world/europe/greece-six-day-workweek.html

Greeks already had the longest work week in the European Union – and are among the lowest paid – and labor unions, apparently anxious the law might extend further, have lashed out at it.

Labor and Social Minister Niki Kerameus, who had been Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, said the law will let bosses deal with “urgent operational demands” that can’t be met because of the skilled worker shortage.

She said it would also compensate them for their overtime with a 40 percent bonus on the sixth day and 115 percent if that falls on a Sunday or a public holiday although overtime had already been required but said often not paid.

Greece is awash with some 50,000 refugees and migrants seeking asylum and is recruiting Egyptians to work the fields and in tasks that don’t require skills but the words six day week and 48 hours have drawn attention.

Kerameus, a lawyer with a degree from Harvard, said that it’s “an exceptional measure” and “does not not affect in any way the established five-day working week,” but there are doubts and worries it could creep over.

The major opposition SYRIZA said it was “a return to working conditions of the 19th century that puts the country to shame,’ and Nikos Fotopoulos, General-Secretary of the private sector labor union blasted it.

In a letter to Kerameus he called it “the most barbaric, most anti-worker government ever,” and said that Greeks dealing with low wages and high prices won’t be able to say no if they’re told to work an extra day.

“Which worker, with the unemployment and poverty we have, would dare to say no to unchecked employers who you’ve allowed to treat workers like their slaves?”  Fotopoulos wrote, although the measures came into force with little resistance.

Despite already working longer than their EU counterparts, Greeks have been less productive in cases with data from Eurostat – the EU’ statistics agency – saying it was 30 percent lower than the 27-member state’s average.

Emmanouil Savoidakis, a lawyer based in Athens who said some of his clients in manufacturing have already expressed interest, said, “It offers an incentive to workers who want to boost their salary while also increasing fair play by employers. Anyone who wants to boost production has to do it subject to certain rules and pay the overtime.”