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The Greek legislature has approved a disputed labor reform that permits 13-hour working days, in the face of fierce opposition and countrywide strike actions.

Government officials asserted the law will modernize the country's labor regulations, but opposition figures from the left-wing faction labeled it as a "harmful law."

Main Elements of the Recently Passed Labor Law

Under the newly enacted legislation, annual overtime is capped at 150 hours, while the regular forty-hour week stays unchanged.

The government insists that the extended workday is optional, only affects the business sector, and can exclusively be implemented for up to 37 days annually.

Parliamentary Support and Resistance

The recent vote was supported by lawmakers from the governing centre-right party, with the moderate party – currently the main resistance – rejecting the bill, while the progressive group abstained.

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

Government Defense and Worker Safeguards

The Labor Minister supported the legislation, saying the changes align national legislation with current employment conditions, and alleged opposition leaders of misleading the public.

These regulations will provide workers the option to take on extra work with the current company for 40% higher pay, while ensuring they will not be fired for declining extra hours.

The measure follows European Union working-time regulations, which cap the mean workweek to forty-eight hours counting overtime but permit adjustments over a year, as stated by the administration.

Opposition Viewpoints and Union Reactions

But, critics have accused the administration of weakening employee protections and "pushing the nation back to a labor middle age." They say local employees currently work longer hours than the majority of EU citizens while earning less and still "face financial difficulties."

The public-sector union stated variable shifts in practice mean "the end of the eight-hour day, the disruption of family and social life and the authorization of excessive labor."

Previous Labor Changes and Financial Background

In 2024, the country introduced a six-day working week for specific sectors in a bid to boost economic growth.

Recent legislation, which came into effect at the beginning of the summer, allow workers to labor up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as instead of forty.

European Labor Data and National Financial Indicators

• Throughout the EU in the previous year, the longest average hours were recorded in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria, Poland (38.9) and Romania (38.8).
• The lowest working week in the union is in the Netherlands, according to Eurostat.
• Starting this year, Greece's official base pay stood at nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Unemployment, which had peaked at 28% during the economic downturn, was 8.1% in August compared with an European mean of five point nine percent, data from Eurostat indicate.
• The country is recovering since its decade-long financial troubles, which concluded in 2018, but salaries and quality of life continue to be among the poorest in the European Union.