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Government Building

Greece's parliament has given the green light a hotly debated work legislation that enables 13-hour work shifts, in the face of widespread resistance and countrywide strike actions.

The administration asserted the law will revamp the country's labor regulations, but opposition figures from the progressive party described it as a "harmful law."

Key Elements of the Recently Passed Labor Law

According to the newly enacted law, annual overtime is also at 150 hours, while the regular forty-hour week stays unchanged.

The government maintains that the extended shift is optional, only applies to the private sector, and can only be implemented for up to thirty-seven days each year.

Parliamentary Support and Opposition

Thursday's ballot was supported by lawmakers from the governing centre-right political group, with the centre-left faction – currently the primary resistance – voting against the legislation, while the left-wing party abstained.

Worker organizations have staged two general strikes calling for the law's repeal this month that brought public transport and services to a standstill.

Official Defense and Employee Protections

A senior official supported the bill, saying the reforms align national legislation with modern labor-market conditions, and alleged opposition leaders of misleading the public.

These regulations will provide workers the option to take on extra work with the same employer for 40% higher compensation, while ensuring they will not be dismissed for declining overtime.

This complies with European Union labor regulations, which cap the mean workweek to forty-eight hours including extra hours but allow adjustments over a year, as stated by the government.

Opposition Perspectives and Labor Reactions

However, critics have accused the government of eroding employee protections and "pushing the nation back to a labor middle age." They argue local workers already work longer hours than most EU citizens while receiving lower pay and still "face financial difficulties."

The public-sector union stated variable shifts in reality mean "the end of the eight-hour day, the disruption of personal time and the legalisation of over-exploitation."

Recent Labor Reforms and Financial Background

Last year, the country introduced a six-day working week for certain industries in a bid to stimulate the economy.

New legislation, which started at the start of the summer, permit employees to labor up to forty-eight hours in a week as instead of 40.

EU Work Data and Greek Financial Indicators

• Across the European Union in the previous year, the highest working weeks were recorded in the Hellenic Republic, then Bulgaria, Poland (38.9) and Romania.
• The shortest working week in the union is in the Netherlands, as per EU statistics.
• As of this year, Greece's national base pay stood at nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the lower tier among European nations.
• Joblessness, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the economic downturn, was eight point one percent in August versus an EU average of five point nine percent, data from Eurostat show.
• Greece is improving since its prolonged financial troubles, which concluded in recent years, but salaries and living standards remain among the lowest in the European Union.