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Government Building

Greece's legislature has approved a contentious work legislation that permits extended-length working days, in the face of widespread resistance and countrywide protests.

Government officials stated the law will modernize the country's work laws, but critics from the left-wing faction labeled it as a "harmful law."

Key Provisions of the New Work Legislation

According to the freshly approved law, annual extra hours is also at one hundred and fifty hours, while the standard forty-hour week continues as before.

Officials insists that the longer workday is elective, only affects the private sector, and can exclusively be used for up to thirty-seven days annually.

Political Backing and Resistance

The recent vote was supported by MPs from the ruling centre-right party, with the centre-left faction – now the main opposition – voting against the legislation, while the progressive party did not vote.

Labor unions have staged two general strikes calling for the law's repeal recently that halted transportation and public services to a stop.

Official Justification and Worker Safeguards

A senior official supported the legislation, claiming the changes align national laws with current labor-market conditions, and alleged critics of misleading the public.

The laws will provide employees the option to take on extra work with the current company for increased pay, while ensuring they will not be fired for declining extra hours.

This complies with EU working-time rules, which cap the average week to forty-eight hours including extra hours but permit flexibility over 12 months, according to the government.

Opposition Perspectives and Labor Reactions

But, critics have accused the government of weakening employee protections and "pushing the nation back to a labor middle age." They say Greek employees already put in more time than the majority of Europeans while receiving lower pay and still "face financial difficulties."

The public-sector union stated flexible working hours in practice mean "the end of the standard workday, the disruption of personal time and the authorization of excessive labor."

Previous Workplace Changes and Financial Context

In 2024, the country enacted a six-day working week for certain sectors in a bid to boost economic growth.

Recent legislation, which came into effect at the start of the summer, allow workers to work up to forty-eight hours in a week as opposed to forty.

EU Labor Data and Greek Economic Metrics

• Across the EU in the previous year, the longest working weeks were observed in the Hellenic Republic, then Bulgaria (39.0), Poland (38.9) and Romania (38.8).
• The shortest working week in the bloc is in the Netherlands, according to EU statistics.
• As of January 2025, Greece's official minimum wage was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, ranking it in the bottom group among EU countries.
• Unemployment, which had reached a high at 28% during the financial crisis, was 8.1% in the summer versus an European mean of five point nine percent, figures from the statistical office show.
• Greece is improving since its prolonged debt crisis, which concluded in recent years, but wages and quality of life continue to be among the lowest in the EU.