In the past few months, there has been an intense political and social debate over the plans of the government to reform the labor law in Greece.

In May 2021, the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Kostis Hatzidakis, introduced the government’s plans to reform the obsolete Greek labour laws. He said that the new reforms would have changed laws that dated back decades ago. Hatzidakis highlighted that “[t]he core of the bill goes back to 1982. In 1982 the Internet, let alone teleworking, was a distant dream.” His statement indicates that the government intends to make radical changes, focusing, among others, to the establishment of a framework, which will respond to the new emerging working environment.

The main points of the new framework are:

1. Measures and Regulations against Violence and Harassment in the workplace

The law ratified ILO Convention No. 190 concerning the elimination of violence and harassment in the workplace. It introduces new measures and new rights and obligations, including the right of the employee who are subject to such behaviour to leave the workplace for a reasonable period of time, without any salary loss or other consequences, and the obligation of employers with more than 20 staff members to adopt written policies to prevent and combat harassment and violence in the workplace and to handle internal complaints. This protection is afforded not only to employees, but to every person that provides services at the workplace, including independent contractors, interns and volunteers, regardless of the contractual relationship with the employer.

2. Special leave entitlements and flexible working arrangements for parents and carers

The law transposed Directive (EU) 2019/1158 on work-life balance for parents and carers, which lays down minimum requirements designed to achieve equality between men and women with regard to labour market opportunities and treatment at work, by facilitating the reconciliation of work and family life for working parents or carers. It provides for paternity leave of 14 working days, irrespective of the employee’s prior work experience or years of service, or marital or family status, an individual state subsidy during half of the 4-month parental leave. The new law further provides for the employee’s right to ask for flexible working arrangements, such as teleworking, flexible working hours or part-time employment.

3. Individual Labour Law Provisions: Working Time

The new law provides that full-time employment corresponds to 40 working hours per week which can be allocated to 5 days (i.e. 8 hours per day) or 6 days per week (i.e. 6 hours and 40 minutes per day), in accordance with the applicable statutory provisions, collective labour agreements or arbitration awards.

It also contains provisions on overtime, breaks, organisation of working- time, annual leave, unpaid leave, part-time employees and work on Sundays and public holidays.

4. General legal framework on termination

The new law introduces for the first time a list of prohibited reasons for termination, including termination on discrimination grounds, vindictive termination following the exercise by the employee of his lawful rights and terminations that are contrary to applicable legislation, such as collective dismissals, termination of pregnant employees or union officials, in cases of harassment, during the employee’s annual leave etc.

If the termination of employment is challenged based on one of the specific grounds explicitly prohibited by law, then the burden of proof is reversed and the employer is required to provide substantial evidence in court in order to prove that the termination took place for reasons other than those invoked by the employee. In such cases, instead of challenging the termination as invalid and claiming reinstatement and payment of back salaries, the employee is entitled to ask the court to adjudicate an additional amount of compensation, which cannot be less than the employee’s regular emoluments of three months or more than double the legal severance indemnity due to the employee.

The above constitutes a novel provision of the new law that operates as an alternative to reinstatement and payment of back salaries, which has been a serious liability for employers in termination cases.

5. Provisions on Telework and Other Contemporary Types of Work

Telework remains in principle voluntary both for the employee and the employer. The new law introduces two exceptions of unilateral application.

Employers may unilaterally impose remote working on employees on grounds of protection of public health.

In addition, employees may also request to work remotely to avoid health risks.

Employers remain obliged to bear the costs incurred by the employee due to telework, including to provide, install and maintain the necessary equipment, to provide technical support and to compensate the employee for the use of his/her home for work purposes.

The new law establishes the right of teleworkers to “disconnect”, namely to be able to disengage from work and refrain from engaging in work-related electronic communications, such as emails, telephone calls or other messages, outside normal working hours or during vacation time.

Employers are explicitly prohibited from monitoring the performance of teleworkers with the use of webcams.

The above framework is not fully applicable yet as special legislation is expected to regulate various aspects of its implementation, such as health and safety requirements, compensation and notification obligations etc.

6. Provisions related to the “Ergani II” Information System

Employers are required to install and operate an electronic system for the monitoring of their employees’ working time with online interconnection with the “ERGANI II” platform, an upgrade of the existing ERGANI platform. The new law also provides for the introduction of a “digital employment card”, which will provide real-time data to the “ERGANI II” platform regarding working hours and all changes thereof, including commencement and end of work, breaks, any work provided in excess of lawful working hours and the use of any leave entitlement.

Based on the timeline published by the Ministry of Labour, the digital employment card is expected to be gradually introduced as from the first semester of 2022.

7. Collective Labour Law Provisions

Law 4808/2021 introduces changes also to ollective Labour Law concerning the categories and registrations of trade unions, the right to strike, the ability to conclude a collective labour agreement, the conciliation procedure and the judicial review of arbitral awards.

8. Establishment of “Labour Inspectorate” as an Independent Authority

The Labour Inspectorate becomes an independent authority, with full operational independence, aimed to ensuring the application of the employment legislation.

These reforms are complex and significant. Prime Minister Mitsotakis has described this new law, which “sets some rules in the (labour) jungle” and “builds a modern working environment” in Greece.