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Government Building

The Greek parliament has given the green light a hotly debated work legislation that authorizes extended-length work shifts, in the face of widespread opposition and countrywide strike actions.

The administration asserted the law will revamp Greek work laws, but critics from the left-wing party described it as a "harmful law."

Main Elements of the New Work Legislation

According to the newly enacted legislation, yearly extra hours is also at one hundred and fifty hours, while the regular forty-hour week stays unchanged.

Officials emphasizes that the extended workday is elective, only applies to the business sector, and can only be applied for up to thirty-seven days each year.

Parliamentary Support and Resistance

Thursday's ballot was backed by MPs from the governing centre-right political group, with the centre-left faction – currently the primary opposition – voting against the bill, while the left-wing party did not vote.

Worker organizations have organized multiple protests calling for the bill's withdrawal recently that halted public transport and services to a standstill.

Official Defense and Worker Safeguards

The Labor Minister defended the bill, claiming the reforms bring in line national laws with modern employment conditions, and accused critics of misleading the public.

These regulations will provide workers the option to take on extra work with the current company for increased pay, while guaranteeing they will not be fired for refusing overtime.

The measure follows EU labor regulations, which cap the mean workweek to 48 hours counting overtime but allow adjustments over a year, according to the administration.

Critical Viewpoints and Labor Responses

But, opposition parties have charged the government of weakening employee protections and "pushing the country back to a labor middle age." They say Greek workers currently put in more time than the majority of EU citizens while receiving lower pay and still "struggle to make ends meet."

A major labor organization said flexible working hours in reality mean "the end of the eight-hour day, the disruption of family and social life and the authorization of over-exploitation."

Previous Workplace Reforms and Financial Background

In 2024, the country enacted a six-day work schedule for specific sectors in a attempt to boost economic growth.

New legislation, which came into effect at the start of July, allow workers to labor up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as opposed to forty.

European Labor Statistics and National Financial Metrics

• Throughout the EU in the previous year, the longest working weeks were observed in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria (39.0), Poland (38.9) and Romania.
• The shortest working week in the union is in the Netherlands, according to EU statistics.
• As of this year, the nation's national base pay was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, ranking it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Unemployment, which had peaked at twenty-eight percent during the economic downturn, was eight point one percent in the summer versus an EU average of 5.9%, figures from Eurostat indicate.
• The country is recovering since its decade-long financial troubles, which concluded in recent years, but wages and quality of life remain among the poorest in the EU.