Greece Just Became the First European Country to Impose a 6-Day Workweek

Just when one thought that the neoliberal dystopia created in Greece since the eruption of its debt crisis could not get any darker, the current right-wing government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has replaced the nation’s five-day workweek with a six-day workweek and flexible working hours. The controversial new law kicks into effect July 1, as Greeks have accepted it with little resistance. The six-day workweek applies to both the public and the private sector. Specifically, the new labor law affects businesses, organizations and continuously operating enterprises that currently use the five-day workweek model and enables employers to compel their employees to work six days a week. The additional working day will be paid with an additional 40 percent of the daily wage. As a poster child of neoliberal transformation, Greece is the first country in Europe to introduce the six-day workweek, and it comes at a time when other European countries have already adopted or tested, with overwhelmingly positive results, a four-day workweek system. What is even more ironic about the new labor law is that Greeks already work the longest hours in Europe (while earning lower wages than at the beginning of the country’s financial crisis), while labor productivity, defined as real gross domestic product per hour worked, is approximately 61 percent of the European Union average and 55 percent of the eurozone average. In fact, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Economic Outlook, labor productivity has actually fallen in recent years, revealing the moribund state of the existing economic model in Greece. The new labor law, which was approved last September by a Parliament dominated by conservatives, was allegedly designed with the intent of putting an end to skilled labor shortages. This is complete gibberish, as virtually all of Europe seems to be facing skilled labor shortages. Roughly 75 percent of employers in 21 European countries reported having difficulty finding workers equipped with the right skills in 2023, while 82 percent of German employers reported experiencing problems with finding qualified candidates for open positions in 2024. Yet, only Greece’s right-wingers seem to think that making a transition from a five-day workweek to a six-day workweek is the way to address skilled labor shortages. Moreover, they are aloof from the anxieties of citizens everywhere who demand better work-life balance, as well as oblivious to the empirical evidence available that a shortened workweek results in increased employee productivity and company performance. The change is motivated by a deep-seated desire on the part of neoliberals and the domestic capitalist elite to further degrade the position of workers and to maximize labor exploitation. True enough, international creditors (the so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) had recommended back at the height of the debt crisis that Greece should adopt a six-day workweek, but the new labor law is the work of former Minister of Labor and current Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis, whose long and rich history of antisemitism and political involvement in far right politics is well documented. Georgiadis, who also serves as vice president of the right-wing New Democracy party, has in fact gone on record saying that it is the “right” of workers to work 16 hours a day. In practice, the new labor law may very well realize this ultra-reactionary vision for the future of workers and work in Greece. It allows workers to work eight hours a day in two different business establishments and includes a series of highly flexible employer-employee arrangements such as allowing the former to offer new workers a six-month probationary period and release them without compensation during the first year. Employers can also call an employee into work on their day off with just a 24-hour notice. In a different era, such reactionary labor measures would have at least encountered massive waves of public anger and protests. Konstantinos Mitsotakis, the father of the current Greek prime minister and a Thatcherite, managed to stay in power for only three short years (1990-1993) on account of the large-scale opposition by trade unions, socialists and communists to his ambitious plan for structural reforms of the Greek economy based on deregulation policies, market liberalization and wild privatization schemes of all public sector enterprises and all social services. Even members of his own New Democracy party opposed his radical privatization schemes. Unfortunately, today the social reordering in Greece is so deep and profound that public pain for private gain has become the new norm as many years of brutal neoliberal capitalism combined with the left’s betrayal have resulted in a condition of political demoralization among the citizenry that makes it difficult to see how the country can wriggle out of its ongoing neoliberal nightmare. Greece may be the first country in Europe to institute a six-day workweek, but employees in many companies in China already work six days a week and a number of companies in the U.S. also plan to mandate a six-day workweek in 2025. Undoubtedly, the erosion of labor rights and increased labor exploitation are easier