The Greeks are insane for going along with this. Revolutions have started over less. Clearly their politicians no longer have the best interests of the Greek people in mind.
I don’t get something about the article. They are saying that there is a labour shortage so they need to do this but they also say that the employers have all the power.
Usually, a labour shortage means that the employees have the power so you’d have thought that they’d have been able to tell the employers to piss off when they try to increase their hours.
Greek here.
I and many thousands of people like me have already been working 6 or 7 day weeks for years now. I’ve worked 50 hours this past week (no paid overtime either) and I’ve done 70 hour weeks this year, but not regularly, so I’m actually one of the lucky ones.
The only difference this makes is legalizing it so boss can’t be sued or fined.
Hi. I just want to ask what happens if you choose to not work that extra day? I’m assuming you might get fired?
If that is the case, when they fire you, they lose even more work force, which will just make whatever this is even worse, right?
Retaliatory tactics are all too common. Your life is made miserable within the workplace (if you don’t get fired) and then good luck being hired somewhere else in the same field.
You can be fired after a year without a severance package for no reason.
Where I work now we’re short staffed on pretty much every department and yet we won’t offer higher wages to attract new hires, cause then you’d need to raise the wages of the tenured people as well.
Instead, you squeeze the everloving shit out of whoever stays for the same money as the last 5 years while inflation is still soaring.
Thank you for taking the time to reply!
I understand the retaliatory bullshit would definitely scare more people than we should allow. Say your entire department decides “Fuck that. I’m taking my two days off.”, what would that do as a whole? Would they retaliate on all the people or just the ones who they know need a job more than others?
I’m not dumb and think that that’s even possible, because organizing is a lot harder than we’d all like to admit. I’m just genuinely curious about how that would work out long term I guess.
You don’t have to reply or anything, and I hope I’m not coming off any type of way. I just can’t believe this is something they thought was a good idea.
Thank you! :)
People are scared. Most employers will prefer hiring friends and relatives and all their families rather than skilled workers. You do what you can, I know many people living paycheck to paycheck. They just can’t afford to revolt.
Thankfully there are unions that help workers organize, but in many sectors you’re discouraged from joining one.
The official reason for the introduction of the six-day work week is that there is a shortage of skilled workers on the Greek labor market as the population keeps shrinking and the country losing scores of thousands of workers who fled during the economic and austerity crisis in search of jobs in other countries.
So “The austerity and beatings will continue until morale improves.”
Prevent them from leaving by offering better… How does this not further the idea of ‘well eff this place, bye!’
So while the world is trying to go to 4 day work week, here’s the Greeks going the opposite direction.
They don’t really work all those hours. If I’m to guess, there’s napping, long lunches etc included. I bet you most countries are more productive in 40 hours.
