The Greek executive has handed a regulation permitting personal employers to increase shifts to 13 hours in line with day, framed in the case of “flexibility” and “growth”. It’s advertised as voluntary and slightly paid, however successfully it dismantles the usual eight-hour day, regardless of survey knowledge appearing staff overwhelmingly oppose it.
However whilst critics query its legality, technically it does conform to the Ecu Union’s operating time directive. For plenty of, particularly in hospitality, it merely formalises what already exists: lengthy hours, low pay, little relaxation.
The reform mirrors a broader Ecu and international shift against deregulated paintings. And it proves that the struggle for shorter hours is a long way from over, as I set out in a bankruptcy within the impending guide World Futures of Paintings: A Important Creation.
After Greek staff’ 1936 victory securing the eight-hour day, the rustic has now reached some degree the place Greeks are once more a few of the maximum overworked in Europe. Knowledge from the EU’s statistics administrative center and the Organisation for Financial Co-operation and Building (OECD) display full-time workers log about 1,900 hours a 12 months, when put next with 1,510 in the United Kingdom and 1,330 in Germany.
Weekly hours upload as much as 41-42 on moderate, the very best within the EU. But wages and productiveness stay low. This paradox of operating extra however incomes much less displays a regime centred on labour intensification and salary suppression, vulnerable collective bargaining and precarious jobs.
Since 2005, Greece has loosened its operating time regime below “flexibility” reforms. A 2005 regulation allowed day-to-day shifts to be stretched by means of two hours, every other exchange in 2021 redefined time beyond regulation, whilst a 3rd regulation two years later revived the six-day week.
And now the truthful paintings for all invoice allows 13-hour days on a “voluntary” foundation. In combination, those measures have eroded the eight-hour norm, substituting collective bargaining for the wishes of employers.
The Greek executive claims that staff need longer days, however the proof suggests another way. The pressure to increase operating hours mask a refusal to boost actual wages and family source of revenue. For the reason that 2008-09 monetary disaster, GDP has shriveled by means of 27% and stays beneath pre-crisis ranges, whilst family disposable source of revenue has fallen by means of 35 proportion issues.
Even the new minimum-wage hike (a 6% build up to €880 (£775) monthly for full-time staff) provides no actual features in buying energy, leaving staff poorer than ahead of the disaster. As a substitute of upper pay, the federal government’s answer is longer days – stretching time when it can not stretch source of revenue.
Greeks took to the streets in March – ahead of the brand new regulation was once handed – to protest at prime costs and inflation.
EPA/PARIS PAPAIOANNOU
A survey previous this 12 months by means of the Greek labour institute discovered that 94% of staff enhance shorter hours without a pay reduce, and just about 60% reject a 13-hour day outright. Amongst the ones already operating such hours, 70% say the “voluntary” label is incomprehensible, with staff compelled to position in those hours to make ends meet.
For plenty of, the brand new regulation merely confirms the overwork they already face. For others, it represents a go back to the nineteenth century. The wave of national moves tough its repeal raises a transparent query. If staff reject it, and EU regulation supposedly promises the other, how can the measure cross?
EU – protector or enabler?
Maximum opposition events puzzled the 13-hour workday’s legality below EU regulation, however the EU operating time directive itself supplies the loophole. It stipulates a 48-hour weekly moderate and 11 hours’ day-to-day relaxation, but imposes no cap on day-to-day hours.
Member states might grant opt-outs, permitting staff to “voluntarily” exceed the boundaries, successfully legalising overwork. In accordance with a Greek MEP, the Ecu Fee showed that Greece’s reform complies with EU laws. It admitted that the directive permits the 13-hour workday if the 48-hour weekly moderate is met within the reference duration of 4 months. It’s offered as “worker protection”, however this common sense merely allows exhaustion now, relaxation later.
The United Kingdom executive’s rebuke of South Cambridgeshire District Council for trialling a four-day paintings week displays that resistance to shorter hours is hardly ever distinctive to Greece. Throughout complicated economies, longer operating time has been normalised.
And NHS group of workers reportedly carried out greater than 1 million hours of unpaid time beyond regulation each and every week ahead of the pandemic. Via 2025, it’s been claimed that inefficiencies and delays have added every other 7.5 million additional paintings hours each and every week around the NHS staff.
Amazon staff in the USA paintings ten-hour shifts and 55-hour weeks all the way through top seasons, with identical patterns in the United Kingdom. Amazon stated its paintings patterns be offering versatile profession alternatives and that its group of workers had been the “heart and soul” of its operations. Every other elite tech company looks as if following swimsuit: Google’s Sergey Brin if truth be told referred to as for a 60-hour week.
The rush to increase operating hours isn’t an anomaly in Greece, however a part of a broader development throughout complicated economies – the normalisation of overwork within the identify of flexibleness and expansion.
Staff are anticipated to evolve, erasing barriers between paintings and lifestyles. Greece’s 13-hour day doesn’t mark growth however a retreat from hard-won labour rights. And it threatens to undo historical victories on operating stipulations in pursuit of additional productiveness will increase and earnings.
This newsletter was once corrected to amend the Greek minimal salary to €880 monthly quite than every week.
