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Greece's legislature has ratified a hotly debated labor reform that authorizes 13-hour working days, despite fierce opposition and countrywide strike actions.

The administration asserted the measure will modernize Greek labor regulations, but opposition figures from the left-wing party labeled it as a "harmful law."

Key Provisions of the New Work Legislation

According to the freshly approved legislation, annual extra hours is capped at one hundred and fifty hours, while the standard 40-hour week continues as before.

Officials emphasizes that the longer workday is optional, only affects the private sector, and can only be implemented for up to thirty-seven days annually.

Parliamentary Backing and Resistance

Thursday's ballot was backed by lawmakers from the governing conservative party, with the centre-left party – currently the primary opposition – voting against the bill, while the progressive party did not vote.

Worker organizations have staged two general strikes calling for the law's repeal recently that brought transportation and services to a standstill.

Government Justification and Employee Protections

A senior official supported the legislation, claiming the reforms bring in line national laws with current labor-market realities, and accused critics of misleading the public.

The laws will provide workers the choice to take on additional hours with the same employer for 40% higher pay, while guaranteeing they cannot be fired for declining extra hours.

This follows European Union labor rules, which cap the mean week to 48 hours including extra hours but allow flexibility over a year, according to the administration.

Opposition Perspectives and Labor Reactions

But, critics have accused the government of eroding workers' rights and "pushing the nation back to a medieval work era." They argue local workers already work longer hours than the majority of EU citizens while earning less and still "struggle to make ends meet."

A major labor organization said flexible working hours in practice mean "the end of the eight-hour day, the destruction of personal time and the authorization of excessive labor."

Previous Labor Reforms and Financial Context

Last year, Greece introduced a six-day work schedule for certain sectors in a bid to stimulate economic growth.

New laws, which started at the start of the summer, allow employees to labor up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as instead of 40.

EU Work Statistics and National Economic Indicators

• Across the European Union in the previous year, the longest average hours were recorded in Greece (39.8 hours), then Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.
• The lowest work hours in the bloc is in the Netherlands (32.1), as per EU statistics.
• Starting January 2025, the nation's official minimum wage stood at nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, ranking it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Unemployment, which had reached a high at twenty-eight percent during the financial crisis, was 8.1% in August compared with an European mean of 5.9%, data from the statistical office show.
• The country is recovering since its decade-long financial troubles, which ended in 2018, but salaries and quality of life continue to be among the lowest in the European Union.