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Government Building

The Greek legislature has given the green light a contentious labor reform that authorizes 13-hour working days, despite fierce resistance and nationwide strike actions.

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

Key Elements of the New Labor Law

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

Officials insists that the longer workday is optional, solely affects the business sector, and can only be implemented for up to 37 days each year.

Parliamentary Backing and Resistance

Thursday's vote was supported by lawmakers from the ruling centre-right political group, with the moderate party – now the main opposition – voting against the legislation, while the progressive party did not vote.

Worker organizations have staged two general strikes demanding the bill's withdrawal this month that brought public transport and public services to a stop.

Government Justification and Worker Safeguards

A senior official defended the bill, claiming the changes bring in line Greek legislation with current employment realities, and accused opposition leaders of misleading the citizens.

The laws will provide employees the option to accept additional hours with the current company for increased compensation, while ensuring they will not be fired for declining extra hours.

The measure complies with European Union labor rules, which cap the mean workweek to 48 hours including overtime but permit adjustments over a year, as stated by the government.

Critical Perspectives and Labor Reactions

However, opposition parties have accused the government of weakening workers' rights and "pushing the nation back to a labor middle age." They argue local workers currently 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 reality mean "the end of the standard workday, the destruction of family and social life and the authorization of over-exploitation."

Previous Labor Changes and Economic Background

Last year, Greece introduced a six-day work schedule for certain sectors in a bid to stimulate the economy.

New laws, which started at the beginning of the summer, allow workers to labor up to 48 hours in a workweek as opposed to 40.

European Work Data and National Economic Indicators

• Across the EU in the previous year, the longest working weeks were observed in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria (39.0), Poland and Romania (38.8).
• The shortest working week in the union is in the Netherlands, according to EU statistics.
• As of January 2025, the nation's official minimum wage stood at nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, ranking it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Joblessness, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the economic downturn, was 8.1% in August compared with an European mean of 5.9%, figures from Eurostat indicate.
• Greece is improving since its decade-long financial troubles, which concluded in recent years, but wages and living standards continue to be among the poorest in the European Union.