Court ruling stirs up controversy over employment of contract workers

In November 2006, the plenary session of the Court of Auditors issued an important decision. According to the decision, the civil courts are not deemed competent to judge the nature of contract workers’ employment relationships. This ruling will affect about 200,000 employees.

In a decision issued by the plenary session of the Court of Auditors in November 2006, it was ruled that the civil courts are not deemed sufficiently competent to make judgements about the nature of the employment relationships of contract workers. This decision not only raises further questions regarding judicial settlements in relation to the major social issue of contract workers, but also casts doubt over the authority of all similar previous and current civil court rulings. The decision will affect about 200,000 employees.

Details of court ruling

Specifically, the issue being judged concerned the refusal of the assessors to endorse payment orders for local authority employees who had been made permanent under final, irrevocable court rulings. These rulings stipulated that their employment relationships must be converted into open-ended contracts. Initially, the First Division of the Court of Auditors justified this practice by the state; as a result, thousands of employees remained unpaid for months but continued their regular employment in enterprises throughout the broader public sector.

Given the social and legal gravity of the issue, the case was referred to a plenary session of the Court of Auditors. In a majority vote of 17–11, the court issued a decision stipulating the following legal provisions:

• The court rulings in favour of the employees are to be annulled, since the civil courts are not recognised as being competent to rule on the definition of the nature of employment relationships, that is, on whether they are fixed-term or open-ended.

• This opens the way for the removal of contract workers who have been engaged on open-ended contracts, since they are to receive no back pay nor pay for their future work.

However, in accordance with the view of the minority of the Court of Auditors members, the court is bound by its irrevocable judgements (res judicata), even in cases where the civil courts may have ruled in error. This is because the civil courts are deemed competent to rule on the legal nature of private-law employment contracts, including such contracts entered into with state-law entities.

Judiciary rulings

This development was directed by the initiative taken by two high-ranking members of the judiciary in the preceding period. In August 2006, the chief justice of the Supreme Court (Areopagus) issued an internal circular to the judges of the civil courts, suggesting that they should not accept any requests for interim measures in favour of the employees who were dismissed. At the same time, the prosecutor of the Supreme Court issued an appeal against two decisions on interim measures that vindicated contract workers, arguing that the conversion of work contracts and fixed-term contracts into open-ended contracts is unconstitutional.

However, the issue of compatibility with the Constitution was resolved favourably for the contract workers in a recent ruling (No. 18/2006) by the full plenary session of the Supreme Court. The latter also ruled that the only condition for the implementation of the Council Directive 1999/70/EC concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work was the meeting of fixed and permanent needs, as also pointed out by the European Court of Justice (C. 212/2004).

Commentary

This latest development in the contract workers’ ongoing court battles is expected to cause even greater social problems and tensions, since the number of employees involved, together with their families, is high. This is also compounded by the fact that many of these workers are likely to be low-paid employees, who are already facing substantial financial problems.

Apostolos Kapsalis, Labour Institute of Greek General Confederation of Labour (INE/GSEE)