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Government Building

Greece's legislature has given the green light a hotly debated labor reform that enables 13-hour working days, despite strong opposition and countrywide protests.

The administration claimed the measure will revamp Greek work laws, but critics from the progressive party labeled it as a "harmful law."

Key Provisions of the Recently Passed Labor Law

Under the freshly approved law, yearly extra hours is also at one hundred and fifty hours, while the standard forty-hour week stays unchanged.

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

Political Backing and Opposition

Thursday's vote was backed by MPs from the governing conservative political group, with the moderate faction – currently the main opposition – rejecting the legislation, while the left-wing party abstained.

Labor unions have staged multiple protests demanding the law's repeal recently that halted transportation and public services to a stop.

Official Justification and Worker Safeguards

A senior official defended the bill, saying the changes align national legislation with modern labor-market conditions, and accused opposition leaders of misleading the citizens.

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

This complies with EU labor rules, which limit the mean week to 48 hours including overtime but allow adjustments over 12 months, as stated by the government.

Opposition Perspectives and Labor Responses

However, critics have accused the government of eroding workers' rights and "driving the nation back to a labor middle age." They say local employees already work longer hours than the majority of EU citizens while receiving lower pay and still "face financial difficulties."

The public-sector union said flexible working hours in reality mean "the end of the eight-hour day, the disruption of personal time and the authorization of excessive labor."

Previous Workplace Reforms and Financial Context

In 2024, the country enacted a six-day working week for certain industries in a attempt to stimulate the economy.

Recent legislation, which came into effect at the beginning of July, permit workers to work up to 48 hours in a week as opposed to 40.

EU Labor Statistics and National Financial Metrics

• Throughout the EU in 2024, the longest average hours were recorded in Greece (39.8 hours), then Bulgaria, Poland and Romania (38.8).
• The lowest working week in the union is in the Netherlands, as per EU statistics.
• Starting this year, Greece's official base pay was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the bottom group among EU countries.
• Unemployment, which had peaked at twenty-eight percent during the financial crisis, was eight point one percent in August versus an European mean of five point nine percent, figures from Eurostat indicate.
• Greece is recovering since its prolonged financial troubles, which concluded in recent years, but wages and quality of life continue to be among the lowest in the EU.