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Greece's legislature has given the green light a contentious work legislation that enables extended-length working days, in the face of strong opposition and nationwide strike actions.

Government officials claimed the law will modernize Greek labor regulations, but critics from the left-wing party described it as a "regulatory disaster."

Main Provisions of the Recently Passed Work Legislation

Under the freshly approved law, yearly overtime is also at one hundred and fifty hours, while the regular forty-hour workweek continues as before.

Officials emphasizes that the extended workday is optional, solely affects the private sector, and can exclusively be used for up to thirty-seven days annually.

Political Support and Resistance

Thursday's vote was backed by lawmakers from the governing conservative party, with the centre-left party – now the main resistance – voting against the bill, while the left-wing party did not vote.

Worker organizations have staged multiple protests demanding the law's repeal this month that brought transportation and public services to a stop.

Official Defense and Employee Safeguards

The Labor Minister supported the legislation, claiming the changes align Greek legislation with current labor-market conditions, and accused critics of misleading the citizens.

The laws will give workers the choice to take on additional hours with the same employer for 40% higher compensation, while guaranteeing they will not be dismissed for declining overtime.

This complies with EU working-time rules, which cap the mean workweek to 48 hours counting overtime but permit flexibility over 12 months, according to the government.

Critical Viewpoints and Labor Responses

However, critics have charged the administration of weakening employee protections and "driving the nation back to a medieval work era." They argue local workers already work longer hours than most Europeans while earning less and still "struggle to make ends meet."

The public-sector union said flexible working hours in reality mean "the end of the standard workday, the destruction of personal time and the authorization of excessive labor."

Previous Workplace Reforms and Economic Context

In 2024, the country introduced a six-day work schedule for specific sectors in a attempt to boost the economy.

New laws, which started at the beginning of July, permit workers to work up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as instead of forty.

European Labor Statistics and Greek Financial Indicators

• Throughout the European Union in the previous year, the highest working weeks were recorded in the Hellenic Republic, followed by Bulgaria (39.0), Poland and Romania (38.8).
• The lowest work hours in the bloc is in the Netherlands (32.1), according to EU statistics.
• Starting 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 peaked at twenty-eight percent during the financial crisis, was 8.1% in the summer compared with an European mean of five point nine percent, data from Eurostat indicate.
• The country is improving since its prolonged debt crisis, which concluded in recent years, but salaries and living standards continue to be among the poorest in the EU.