New industrial relations legislation comes into force

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On 1 April 2001, the provisions of Law 2874/2000 regarding "employment regulations and other provisions" came into full force in Greece. In the area of industrial relations, this means changes in areas such as overtime, working time flexibility, part-time workers' pay and the definition of collective redundancies.

As from 1 April 2001, the industrial relations provisions of Law 2874/2000 regarding "employment regulations and other provisions" (GR0012192F) came into full effect. The main new provisions are as follows.

• The obligation of workers to work five hours of overtime per week at the employer's discretion is abolished. This has been a long-standing demand of the Greek General Confederation of Labour (GSEE).

• There will now be a 50% across-the-board increase in pay for overtime exceeding 40 hours per week, up to 120 hours annually.

• Illegal overtime exceeding maximum working hours will be paid at a rate of 150%.

• Workers employed for under four hours daily and receiving minimum wages are entitled to a 7.5% pay increase.

• Provision is made for payment of a monthly income supplement of GRD 30,000 for long-term unemployed people hired to work part-time for more than four hours a day, for as long as the employment relationship lasts, up to a maximum of 12 months.

• The GSEE's initiative for payment of benefits to long-term unemployed people who still need to obtain five years' worth of social insurance stamps in order to acquire full pension rights has been adopted.

• The provision of the 2000-1 National General Collective Agreement (GR0006175N) establishing an extra week of paid maternity leave after confinement (17 weeks in total) has been ratified.

• Pensions will be paid after 35 years of insurance contributions, at ages three years younger than those previously in force (55 instead of 58, and 53 instead of 56 for full and partial pensions, respectively).

• The thresholds beyond which redundancies are considered to be collective redundancies are changed. For enterprises employing 20-200 workers, a threshold of four redundancies per month has been set. For enterprises employing more than 200 workers, the threshold for redundancies is still 2%-3% of the workforce, or 30 persons.

• Workers in ailing enterprises should be made aware that the limit beyond which redundancies are regarded as collective redundancies has been changed, and special formalities are now required.

• With regard to working time flexibility arrangements, it is provided that in order to implement periodical increases and decreases in working hours over the course of the year, there must be agreement between workers and management. Employers cannot impose such changes unilaterally in the context of their managerial prerogative. The law requires either: an enterprise-level collective agreement; agreement between the employer and the enterprise-level union; agreement with the works council; or agreement between the employer and an employees' association consisting of at least five workers in enterprises employing at least 20 people. "Flexible" working hours are set at 138 annually, and provided the arrangement is agreed upon, they can be distributed so as to have more working hours in specific periods, and fewer at other times during the same year. Where flexible working time arrangements are introduced, the maximum average number of working hours per week is 38.

It should be noted that both the employers' organisations (GR0012194F) and the trade unions (GR0012193F) remain opposed to some of these provisions.