Government proposes changes to industrial relations

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In July 2000, the Greek government announced a set of proposals aimed at increasing employment and reducing unemployment. The proposed measures, which will be subject to a process of social dialogue before being finalised, include a number of changes in the industrial relations area, including greater flexibility in working time rules at the discretion of management and reduced employers' social security contributions. The proposals met with a strong reaction from the trade unions.

On 13 July 2000, a meeting was held of a Government commission, with Prime MinisterKostas Simitis presiding, in order to finalise and adopt new government proposals regarding the changes which it believes must be made to Greek industrial relations. According to Giannitsis Anastassios, Minister of Labour and Social Security, the impending changes to labour relations are mainly aimed at increasing employment and reducing unemployment. In particular, the government will seek to create around 400,000 new jobs in the coming four years and to reduce unemployment by 60%. The Minister of Labour called this objective very ambitious, but pointed out that in the new environment of EU Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), all issues regarding the economy, competition and structural changes are again up for discussion. In this framework, he stated, it must be decided straightaway which changes are required in the labour market, otherwise any weakness in the new competitive environment will have a dramatic impact on wages and employment. With regard to the position of the Greek General Confederation of Labour (GSEE) that the new government proposals are one-sided, in that they adversely affect workers and trade unions and are of benefit only to employers, the Minister maintained that: "no economy, no industry, no worker has seen a betterment of its position through an adherence to artificial protections which are costly, absorb resources and restrict employment."

The government proposals

According to the resolution of the Government commission, the 13 basic points of the new policies on employment and unemployment can be reduced to three groups of issues:

• issues to which employers can contribute;

• issues to which workers can contribute; and

• issues to which the state can contribute, including institutional interventions.

Of these 13 points, the five most important, which have given rise to a climate of confrontation with the unions and which concern changes in labour relations, are the following:

• arranging working time on a semi-annual or annual basis (flexible working hours) by using managerial prerogative, that is without trade union;

• restricting overtime exceeding maximum working hours and overtime above normal hours but below maximum hours, so as to increase the number of jobs;

• reducing employers' social insurance contributions by as much as 25%, and abolishing tax breaks for new recruitment provided for by existing legislation;

• adjusting inequalities in collective redundancies legislation, abolishing the threshold of 2% of the workforce for redundancies to be considered collective; and

• examining the issue of increasing part-time employment in the public service, the broader public sector and local authorities.

In the government's view, these proposals should be the subject of a social dialogue process which must be completed by early October 2000, so that the measures can be made final and the relevant bill submitted to Parliament. In this context, the Prime Minister stressed that "the government proposals contain no faits accomplis, but neither should there be considered to be any established taboos."

The position of the unions

In a meeting held on 17 July 2000, the GSEE executive committee discussed extensively the new developments concerning labour issues and decided to reject all five key points of the government proposal as:

• one-sided, in that they affect workers and trade unions and are of benefit only to employers;

• ineffective in dealing with unemployment; and

• dangerous, in that they may lead to further dismantling of industrial relations.

GSEE contends that, with such issues on the agenda, no dialogue can be held. It would also be "hypocritical and pretentious" to maintain that the problem of unemployment and increasing the employment rate can be addressed through these five points. According to GSEE, the dialogue on labour issues can only be effective when it is accompanied by an evaluation of policies and actions which have been taken to date, including:

• the law on economic development and its positive (or negative) impact on the question of development in combination with employment,

• the structural changes in the agricultural sector and the effects of supplying the labour market with an increasingly larger labour force;

• the broader structural changes in the broad public sector of the economy;

• integrated immigration policies and addressing the problems of the foreign workers already in the country, who are often used in the clandestine labour market;

• the absorption of funds and the effectiveness of the actions of the second Community Support Framework, particularly in the area of so-called active employment policies; and

• the institutional framework that has been created by Law 2639/1998 (GR9808187N) and improving it in order to safeguard labour rights.

In this framework, as a direct response to the government's policies and measures, which it considers unexpected and arbitrary, the GSEE executive committee decided:

• to hold a meeting with the administrations of the second-level trade union organisations (federations and labour centres) and the large individual trade unions on 20 July 2000, and to address a protest to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and the Ministry of National Economy; and

• to charge the Institute of Labour (INE) of GSEE and the Confederation of Public Servants (ADEDY) with the design of the necessary studies regarding these issues. The objective is said to be not only to reject in practice the five points of the government proposals but also to document the proposals of the trade union movement in the direction of seeking substantial, viable solutions, in the framework of a broader dialogue, open to society, for dealing with unemployment and increasing the employment rate.

At the meeting between the GSEE presiding board and the presiding boards of all the GSEE-affiliated federations and labour centres in the Athens area, held on 20 July 2000, there was a briefing and discussion on the government decisions regarding labour relations and the measures to address unemployment. The meeting adopted the decisions taken by the GSEE executive committee on 17 July, along with the positions of the presiding board during its meeting with the Minister of Labour and Social Security on 19 July.

It was stated that furtherance of the changes proposed by the government will not provide a solution to the problems of unemployment but rather will exacerbate them, by abolishing any safety limits in the existing institutional framework, and driving labour relations and workers to total insecurity and uncertainty. According to GSEE, the current institutional framework requires improvements, not in the direction that the government measures are leading but in the direction of creating more effective policies and actions to increase employment, utilise funds and programmes, address the problem of the hidden labour market, monitor the implementation and enforcement of labour legislation and reduce working time without loss of pay.

On the basis of these positions and evaluations, it was decided:

• to make representations in the coming period to the employers' organisations - the Federation of Greek Industries (SEV), the General Confederation of Greek Small Businesses and Trades (GSEVEE) and the National Confederation of Greek Traders (ESEE) - in order to make known the positions and proposals of the trade unions on the crucial issues of labour relations and measures to deal with employment. In this way, the employers' organisations can take a position and, as the unions see it, undertake responsibility for the tension that will be caused by their agreement to or involvement in the measures to overturn labour relations; and

• to begin raising workers' awareness in all workplaces in the private and broader public sector of the government measures and the trade union movement's proposals calling them to action to fight against any implementation of the government guidelines. In this context, both the presiding board of the GSEE and its member organisations will be prepared to rally together if necessary, so that strikes or other industrial action may be initiated at any time, if necessary.

Commentary

The implementation of the new policies on employment and unemployment, as made public by the government on 13 July 2000, require changes in the area of industrial relations, with serious implications for labour rights and working conditions. According to the trade unions, the policy to deregulate the labour market which is being adopted by the government is completely in accord with the new conditions created by Greek membership in EMU. Overall, the impact on the content of industrial relations is negative, its main features being increased flexibility in the labour market and increased inequalities between various categories of workers. Although the proposed measures are presented as measures to increase employment and reduce unemployment, they are nevertheless a one-sided approach to boosting competitiveness through the rationale of reducing labour costs. In this context, given the convergence of opinion between the government and employer sides, confrontation with the trade unions is believed to be unavoidable, with unforeseen results with regard to the outcome of the proposed social dialogue. In addition, the disagreement being registered on the government level is creating conditions of confrontation both in the trade unions and in society more widely. (Evangelia Soumeli, INE/GSEE-ADEDY)