Why Greek state workers are protesting new labour law

The invoice has simply been handed with 158 votes in favour and 136 in opposition to. New Democracy, Mitsotakis’ social gathering, was the one one to vote in favour.

For staff in sectors corresponding to schooling, well being and transport, nonetheless, the Mitsotakis authorities (which has a parliamentary majority) has failed to grasp the importance of this measure, which provides member states leeway to transpose the directive into nationwide legislation so long as it meets the said targets.

So what is that this invoice all about? Amongst different issues, it’s going to permit full-time staff to have a part-time second job and to work as much as 13 hours a day. In different phrases, as much as 65 hours per week (5-day week) or 78 hours (6-day week).

It additionally units out the circumstances for a six-day week, if crucial.

The sixth working day is principally meant for sectors corresponding to heavy business and tourism, for which the invoice additionally goals to abolish Sunday relaxation days — so as to not rent new staff, mentioned Syriza opposition MP Theano Fotiou in a speech within the Hellenic parliament.

Below the Mitsotakis authorities’s proposal, employers will be capable of provide new staff a probationary interval of as much as six months and dismiss them through the first 12 months with out compensation or discover (except in any other case agreed).

As well as, those that stop staff from going to work throughout strikes shall be punished with fines and even jail-time.

“Below the guise of harmonizing an EU Directive, the Greek authorities’s proposed invoice, introduced earlier than the Greek Parliament yesterday, basically goals on the additional deregulation of labour relations within the nation,” MEP Kostas Arvanitis (Syriza/The Left) informed EUobserver.

For the unions that known as the strike, corresponding to ADEDY, the most important public sector union in Greece, these adjustments go in opposition to the essential rights of staff and that’s the reason they’ve demanded the withdrawal of this invoice.

For the conservative authorities, the invoice is a means of combating undeclared work, providing flexibility and boosting employment usually.

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It’s subsequently introducing provisions for the creation of so-called ‘on-call’ contracts (zero-hour contracts), the place working time is now not included within the phrases of the contract, some extent that employers are obliged to speak to their staff.

“The proposed legislation doesn’t adhere to and doesn’t respect neither the Greek Structure nor the European acquis,” Tilemachos Dafnis, Greek lawyer and advisor at CESI informed EUobserver.

Klaus Heeger, its secretary basic, added: “We discover the proposed adjustments to labour provisions for Greek public sector personnel worrying”.

The general public sector in Greece was already in dire straits. ADEDY recalled that labour shortages have an effect on crucial sectors of the welfare state, corresponding to well being and schooling.

“On common, your complete public sector has shortages that exceed 40 % of natural positions,” dijo Dimitris Bratis, EU member de ADEDY.

Mitsotakis’s social gathering, New Democracy, has been in energy since 2019 and was re-elected a couple of months in the past. The social gathering has restored the minimal wage, which now stands at €910 per 30 days, however unemployment charges stay among the many highest within the Union (particularly among the many youngest).

“We want engaging employment in public providers to draw and retain extremely certified skills and shut labour shortages,” Heeger mentioned. “In Greece, if enacted, the proposed legislation would counteract these targets”.