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Government Building

Greece's parliament has ratified a hotly debated work legislation that permits 13-hour working days, in the face of strong resistance and countrywide protests.

Government officials claimed the law will revamp the country's work laws, but critics from the progressive party labeled it as a "regulatory disaster."

Main Elements of the New Labor Law

According to the newly enacted legislation, annual overtime is also at 150 hours, while the standard 40-hour week remains in place.

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

Parliamentary Support and Opposition

Thursday's vote was supported by MPs from the governing centre-right party, with the centre-left party – now the main resistance – voting against the bill, while the progressive party abstained.

Worker organizations have organized two general strikes calling for the bill's withdrawal this month that brought transportation and public services to a stop.

Official Justification and Employee Protections

The Labor Minister supported the legislation, claiming the changes align Greek legislation with modern labor-market realities, and accused opposition leaders of misinforming the citizens.

The laws will provide employees the choice to take on extra work with the same employer for increased compensation, while guaranteeing they cannot be dismissed for declining overtime.

The measure complies with European Union working-time regulations, which limit the mean week to forty-eight hours including overtime but permit adjustments over 12 months, according to the government.

Critical Perspectives and Labor Responses

However, critics have accused the administration of weakening employee protections and "pushing the country back to a labor middle age." They say Greek employees currently put in more time than the majority of Europeans while earning less and still "face financial difficulties."

A major labor organization said variable shifts in practice mean "the end of the eight-hour day, the destruction of personal time and the authorization of over-exploitation."

Recent Workplace Reforms and Financial Context

Last year, the country introduced a six-day working week for certain industries in a attempt to stimulate economic growth.

New legislation, which came into effect at the beginning of the summer, permit employees to labor up to forty-eight hours in a week as opposed to forty.

EU Labor Statistics and Greek Economic Indicators

• Throughout the European Union in the previous year, the highest working weeks were recorded in Greece (39.8 hours), then Bulgaria (39.0), Poland and Romania.
• The lowest work hours in the union is in the Netherlands (32.1), as per Eurostat.
• As of January 2025, the nation's national minimum wage stood at nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the lower tier among European nations.
• Joblessness, which had peaked at 28% during the economic downturn, was eight point one percent in the summer versus an EU average of 5.9%, data from Eurostat indicate.
• Greece is recovering since its decade-long debt crisis, which ended in 2018, but salaries and quality of life remain among the poorest in the EU.