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Government Building

The Greek parliament has approved a hotly debated work legislation that permits extended-length working days, despite widespread opposition and countrywide strike actions.

Government officials claimed the measure will update the country's work laws, but opposition figures from the progressive party labeled it as a "legislative monstrosity."

Main Provisions of the New Work Legislation

Under the freshly approved legislation, yearly extra hours is limited at one hundred and fifty hours, while the standard forty-hour workweek stays unchanged.

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

Parliamentary Support and Resistance

Thursday's vote was supported by lawmakers from the ruling conservative political group, with the moderate party – currently the primary resistance – voting against the legislation, while the left-wing group did not vote.

Labor unions have organized two general strikes calling for the bill's withdrawal this month that brought transportation and public services to a standstill.

Government Defense and Worker Safeguards

A senior official defended the legislation, stating the changes bring in line Greek laws with modern labor-market realities, and alleged opposition leaders of misinforming the public.

These regulations will provide employees the choice to take on additional hours with the same employer for 40% higher compensation, while ensuring they will not be dismissed for declining overtime.

This follows EU labor rules, which cap the average workweek to 48 hours including overtime but allow flexibility over 12 months, according to the government.

Opposition Perspectives and Union Responses

But, opposition parties have accused the government of weakening workers' rights and "pushing the country back to a labor middle age." They argue local employees already work longer hours than most Europeans while earning less and still "struggle to make ends meet."

A major labor organization said flexible working hours in reality mean "the end of the standard workday, the disruption of personal time and the legalisation of excessive labor."

Previous Workplace Reforms and Economic Background

In 2024, the country enacted a six-day work schedule for certain industries in a attempt to stimulate economic growth.

New legislation, which came into effect at the beginning of July, permit employees to labor up to 48 hours in a workweek as opposed to forty.

European Work Statistics and National Financial Metrics

• Throughout the EU in the previous year, the highest working weeks were observed in the Hellenic Republic, followed by Bulgaria, Poland and Romania (38.8).
• The lowest working week in the union is in the Netherlands, according to Eurostat.
• As of January 2025, Greece's official minimum wage stood at nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Joblessness, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the economic downturn, was eight point one percent in August compared with an European mean of 5.9%, figures from Eurostat show.
• The country is improving since its decade-long debt crisis, which ended in 2018, but wages and living standards continue to be among the poorest in the European Union.