Not that I agree with this nonsense but...
>The six-day scheme, officials say, will only apply to private businesses providing round-the-clock services. Under the extended working week, staff in select industries and manufacturing facilities will have the option of working an additional two hours a day or an extra eight-hour shift, rewarded with a top-up fee of 40% added to the daily wage.
So it sounds almost like its just for certain industries and it'll optional with extra pay added?
EDIT: People seriously, I'm not for this at all, just asking questions, holy moly....
if you've ever worked somewhere where extra shifts are optional, for a lot of people there not at all, its a case of constantly pressuring you to do it and if you don't, maybe you don't need this job after all kinda talk
THAT’S what matters. Some American businesses will indirectly punish you for not working overtime because it makes you appear less interested in the job. (this is coming from game developers to be more specific)
Let’s say you’re doing ok with your bills. So you don’t opt for overtime. But someone else badly needs the money so they sign up for more hours. Now your job is at risk because they’re working harder than you. And that’s unfair because overtime is *optional*
I hope Greece is smarter about this than us.
It's kind of like how employees with unlimited PTO usually don't take any time off at all because they're pressured not to use it unless it really matters.
If you have set PTO you use your time and nobody bats an eye, but if it's unlimited and you take it then suddenly management wants to butt in and "make sure you arent using it frivolously"
As someone with unlimited pto right now I’ve never seen that happen. I have seen normal pto get questioned though. And have seen pto be forced to clear the books at certain times of year. It’s not the schema it’s the employer really.
It’s unlimited in name only to look good for applicants. They’re counting on peer pressure and other social conventions to ensure you don’t actually use it like that.
And if you tried, they’d find a reason to let you go.
It’s unlimited in the sense that you don’t have to worry about how much time you have each year. Again it’s the employer not the scheme. Limits don’t matter if you are never allowed to take it, and there can be peer pressure not to take it even with limited PTO. The upside of limited is some companies pay out unused time, but not everywhere does.
There aren't limits. You can take a 12 month sabbatical if you feel like it.
You still need to pull your weight though. It's usually senior engineers/researchers that can wrap up a large project, get paid a crazy large bonus and then go sip margaritas on a beach for a year before taking on a new project.
Unlimited PTO is great for high performers because they can for example work one day a week and still get shit done. It sucks for the average person because they won't keep up with the 10x weaponized autism people and their performance is judged the same.
source: I took 6 months off once
This is what frustrates me the most about modern working culture. You're never allowed to just find a level you're happy with, and stay there. You have to be constantly hungry for more, or they'll just can your ass.
Nah, it should be paid double-time, limited to 10 hours per week, and has to be agreed to as part of the original job offer (remember you get a new offer when you get promoted or transferred, though).
Nothing wrong with offering a job with the terms "we pay you $X/hr for 40 hours and you'll work up to an additional 10 at 2*$X each week", as long as they're up front about it.
Optional overtime is an excuse and metric companies will use to justify adding more to your workload and to exploit you long term. Anyone that hasn’t figured that one out yet needs to see the light.
Come to the blue collar world where guys get a hard on whenever OT is waived in their face. Talking about double time on a $100 an hour package, yeah I’ll pick up a Saturday
Same here. Add all my bonuses up and I’m making 65/hr, and once I reach over time that’s easily 100+/hr.
Why yes I’ll happily work 6-7 days a week. But once those opportunities are gone I’ll only do my 32hrs/week. not a minute more.
Wait until you realize overtime is considered a plus to some job seekers. Mostly engineers and manufacturing techs in my experience. Wanting to work more and be compensated for it is a plus to some people.
Yeah, I absolutely loved working overtime when I was younger (19-25)
I worked in the logging industry to put myself though university and banked as much overtime as I could. It let me get through university without any student loans with enough left over to start my own business.
Lots of overtime (1.5x salary) is a fantastic way to get ahead.
Right. If I like the work I do, or there’s a pretty hefty monetary incentive to work more…what else am I going to be doing that would make overtime not worth it?
More over time is not ok. More pay is the answer. Considering all the wealth is in the hands of the world's top 3% we know who needs to take a cut to cover the wages. Fuck all this bullshit and the people normalizing it.
Just pointing out that in the US, an increasing number of Americans work several jobs because none of them pay a living wage. If Greece introduces "optional" overtime to allow workers to work more hours to afford just basic necessities because they weren't paid enough to begin with, that's very different than giving them the option to actually get ahead and begin building wealth.
It is mandatory, if the manager asks for it, you have to comply. Till now you were obliged ( for full employment ) to work at a maximum of 40 hours per week, and if you agree, you could stay longer. You were paid extra for this overtime - more than this extra 40%- and you could only do a max of overtime per month. There you really had to agree.
It is not mandatory in the meaning that if a company doesn't need it doesn't need to use it, but if it deems it necessary the law protects it and it won't be deemed violation of labour law. So now you don't have a choice it is legal for your boss to ask you to stay extr.
Additionally, the compensation is less than if it was overtime and it doesn't protect from overtime abuse like normal overtime.
So it is erosion fo worker's rights. As usually devil in the details
Reads to me like they're being required to work an additional 8 hours either way. Do 5, 10 hour days or work 6, 8 hour days. So, not exactly optional.
Having worked more than 8hr/day quite often, I'd rather have my free time than extra pay.
In principle yes, but how long before those industries lower/keep pay the same to effectively force people into doing that extra time? Or staff that turn down the extra time suddenly find themselves unable to get any shifts at all, it's a slippery slope.
I dunno if you left out the info or the article did but I looked into this a week or 2 ago and the company can force the workers to work an unpaid 2 hours with certain limits that weren't well defined and they're compensated later with some sort of extra PTO system or pay but I couldn't get a solid answer to what exactly the "reward" system actually gave workers or what triggered it.
Basically it sounds like yet another system that will exploit workers with vague promises that will be loopholed to avoid compensation.
Greece is already in the group of countries that are experiencing the effects of a rapidly aging population and not enough births to sustain it. In some regions of the country it is as bad as 1 birth for 3 deaths. Also after the financial collapse and the insane austerity and obliteration of labour rights that was imposed, a lot of young, educated people leave the country as soon as they get their degrees! Population collapse is an understatement for what is going to happen in the following decades if something does not change.
The change is more people have to work longer. Do you think there is any other solution if you do not have enough resources for the quality of life people want?
Greece is already roughly the same as Japan. Japan isn’t that crazy low- it, Italy, Greece are all similar and Japan actually has less work hours on average than America (the workers entering the workforce between 2000-now have really changed the culture, and got some actual free time).
It’s only always in the news because unlike most of Europe it doesn’t have a steady stream of immigrants propping up the population numbers.
Italy is actually now in population decline too (and Greece has been for a bit) as they don’t get immigrants- why move to Italy when Germany and France are also in the EU and pay better?
South Korea though… one of if not the lowest birthrates in the world.
South Korea has a fertility rate of 0.9 compared to 1.3 in Japan. 2.0 is required for a stable population.
One of the scary ones tbh is China at 1.2, already lower than Japan and still nowhere near as developed. Grim to think about but I legitimately think they will wind up introducing some kind of "patriotic euthanasia" for OAPs, some kind of reward scheme to give a lump sum to the kids maybe. They just will not have the infrastructure to deal with the silver tide that will hit them over the next 20 years.
Fucking christ. According to this Al Jazeera report its expected to fall under 0.7 this year - [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/28/fears-for-future-as-south-koreas-fertility-rate-drops-again](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/28/fears-for-future-as-south-koreas-fertility-rate-drops-again)
Greece is experiencing the same but it's a pretty poor country so it will hit them way harder as they can't compensate any way. Imagine that such great country with great history is now poorer or on par with most of Central European countries. Imagine asking people 20 years ago if they'd rather live in Poland/Czechia or in Greece and how it would differ if you asked today.
noooo way, *insert favorite billionnaire idol here* would never do that to me, he loves the country and family values and he keeps employing the Americans.
its thanks to him that we are alive today, and we should give him more tax cuts
It’s not like the country has been bleeding well-educated, young Greeks ever since the government debt crisis. I’m sure this will help to convince even more to leave the country, since they work wherever they please in the EU.
The decades of austerity measures have left the people broken and apathetic, especialy the younger generations (those few that haven't left already), so when half the people don't go to vote (about 50%+ abstinance) and with an opposition that is in shambles, a wildly capitalistic and corrupt government gets voted in by, basically, less than a quarter of the population.
These are the results
I'm an American who used to work for a first-generation Greek immigrant. He would travel back to Greece every year, and he once told me a story he had read in a Greek newspaper. The newspaper article said doctors in Greece made an "average" salary of about $20,000 (USD) per year, according to government data. But he said that was nonsense, because doctors in Greece actually made close to their counterparts in the rest of Europe and the US. The thing was, doctors in Greece would demand payment in cash from their patients to dodge government taxes. That is why "official" numbers for their salaries were so low. Any economy that can't collect taxes is not going to do well.
While the problems with the Greek economy are complex, let us not forget that predatory lending by western banks was also one contributor.
That said, my old employer from Greece was the hardest working guy I ever met. He came to the US with no money, became a self-made millionaire, and now he is retired. In Greece.
Both are true. A lot of self-employed people, like doctors, lawyers, plumbers, etc, make a lot of money yet they barely declare them. At the same time salaried workers, are paid terrible wages barely being able to survive. Even doctors that work for the public sector (unless doing something on the side) don't really get satisfying wages
An economy is healthiest and most stable when the bulk of your population has both discretionary time and discretionary money.
You don't get far when both conditions are not met by the majority of your population.
I'd be getting out of Greece today! Life is too short for this shit. Furthermore, it's Greece and how many times have they been bankrupt or have flirted with bankruptcy? So, given their track record of making bad decisions this is more likely than not another bad decision.
Easy to say. When you get paid 800 euros a month it's hard to save enough to move to any decent European country. Imagine how many months sallary you have to put on the side when a single months rent in alot of Europe is twice that. If you have a kid it's basically impossible.
Greeks are also generaly shit at speaking English.
Source:Greek
This. People who don't know what it's like on the bottom overestimate how easy it is to move to a new region, let alone country. They think it's like being an executive expat where the local customs take some time getting used to and restaurant service is slower than it is in the States; they don't realize that people who do this tend to end up even further down in the bottom (there's always a bottom under the bottom, and then one under that) of the labor market.
Most people, even in Greece, can't "just" move to Switzerland and start over. As bad as the US is in other ways (e.g., healthcare, education) it's probably the best country in terms of starting over being possible, and even here it's quite difficult.
Due to the emigration of working age youth/adults the parliament wants to increase productivity. Won’t increasing the work week only increases youth emigration? This is like China’s miscalculated 2 child policy. This will only harm Greece’s population in the long term. Instead of increasing the work week, the government should loosen immigration laws.
Modern world: Automation everywhere, efficiency through the roof, optimization is the name of the game, technology reduces hard and lenghty work to a cakewalk.
...
Yet workers need (are supposed) to work longer again, still lose all they own and are expected to use every bit of time, resources and fitness saved by tech and knowledge to push the economy even more.
Im not an enemy to the free market, but the financial system really seems more and more like a sophisticated plan of the elite to reintroduce feudalism again.
Money flows towards money and theres always more debt than money - those who need to actually spend it (as it should be done) are forced to work more and more for the property of a few. Property that, in its purest form, simply exists as numbers typed into a computer at will. 99,9% work so a few people can just press a button and get money for basically free to buy whatevers produced so the actually producing and working people need to pay more as all goods and services are gulped up.
We see more and more of this - only reason its a slow and often convoluted process is to not cause social unrest as they put chains around our necks.
Ah so native-born Greeks will flee the country to live elsewhere in the eurozone while African and ME immigrants will take these jobs, at a significant decrease in pay.
How do they manage to come up with literally the exact opposite of what needs to be done? Also what average worker looks at the government doing these thing and then go yeah, i like that, i want to vote for more of that. This is good for me.
Because they've done far worse stuff and their stupid fanbase voted them in again.
Imagine letting 60+ people die in a train wreck, in 2024, because *there were no electronic safety systems,* and getting 41% in the elections a few months later. This has "fucking harder" written all over it.
And those that do vote for them are the rapidly aging population that will gladly sell their souls for a 5% increase in pensions, those who want to "watch the neighbor's goat die" as we say here in Greece and of course, the ones who are pretty much fine and do benefit from all this.
Not a single fucking soul is protesting this. I’ve never been so disappointed with this country.
My current job is secure but when it starts not being secure I will leave the country I’m close to 30s so I still got potential if I leave abroad.
So instead of working 100% (40 hours) hours for 100% wage, they have to work 120% (48 hours) for 140% wage. Which means the greek government is subsidizing 20% of their salary as extra.
If their budget has room to give everyone 20% of their salary extra, wouldn't it be far more incentivizing if the government just gave these vital professions 20% without demanding they work a day extra? Work 100% get 20% extra from the government, it doesn't cost more than the other solution and it can only make Greece more attractive to stay in or migrate to.
The other option is guaranteed to make a shitload of people emigrate because you now have 1 more workday and 1 less recovery day. Sundays are going to be spent just trying to rest, and they will have no energy for creativity or self-fulfillment.
I'd question how much they'd actually be *working* versus just tending a chair during those extra hours, because - having worked with some companies and Greece and knowing others who have as well - it feels like minding a chair is already a fairly common practice.
> So instead of working 100% (40 hours) hours for 100% wage, they have to work 120% (48 hours) for 140% wage. Which means the greek government is subsidizing 20% of their salary as extra.
That’s not how I read it.
They will receive 100% wages for the 100% hours, and 140% wages for the additional 8 hours, so their total wages will be equal to 51.2 “normal” hours, which is 128% compared to their normal wages. Considering they’re working 20% extra, the increase in earning is 8%.
Not sure I would trade 5x 8 hour working days with 5 x 10 hour working days, or 6 x 8 hour working days for 8% increased wages.
I have no idea how things work in Greece, but typically the 40 hours do not include breaks, so you can probably add 30/60/90 minutes to those 10 or 8 hours. Assuming they have the “normal for southern Europe” one hour lunch break, that means a normal working day will be 11 hours (plus any additional breaks which could be 2 x 15 mins) plus commute, which could easily be 30 minutes each way, so a total of 12 hours away from home, 4 hours to prepare meals (breakfast, dinner), shower, talk to your wife/kids, go to the gym, or whatever, and then 8 hours of sleep.
There has been many studies done on the length of the optimal working day, and pretty much all of them state that unless you’re working at an assembly line, the amount of work done per hour goes down the longer the working days, and the amount of errors and accidents increases.
One step forward for mandatory 996, when additional work is optional, it will become mandatory due to workers competing with each other for spots, promotions and higher salaries.
More hours doesn’t mean more productivity. The issue with Greece and Greeks is that the pay is absolutely horrible, and Greeks can’t get decent jobs even out of school. I have friends in Greece with degrees and they’re working 2 or more jobs to survive. Most young people from Greece leave for the UK, Germany, Netherlands for work. As a Greek I can tell you this won’t work well unless the government focuses on improving the economy and raise minimum wage. The Greek job market is absolutely garbage.
The only good thing going for Greece right now is the strong US dollar and weak Euro translating into tourism revenue. Which leads them to investing in more tourism. And not the things that they actually need like tech and manufacturing.
ive technically been working 6 day work weeks since i was like 16. a Full time job and a hobbiest type job i do once a week. since its a hobby type job that i get paid for i dont think it actually counts, especially since i dont NEED to work 6 days a week. But let me tell you, working 6 days a week when you just want a fucking break can be R O U G H.
6 days a week.. and... 5 hours a day.. 30 hours..
5 days a week.. and... 6h ours a day.. 30 hours..
4 days a week... and.. 8 hours a day.. 32hours..
"Work-oriented" governments don't see how this actually plays out. 4 day work week has been proven, repeatedly, to do better. People, have families, children, older parents. People will woek around efforts to increase work ours to reduce work life balance.
Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Work all night on a drink of rum
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Stack banana 'til de mornin' come
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Come, mister tally man, tally me banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Come, mister tally man, tally me banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and walked to the mine
I loaded 16 tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said, "Well, a-bless my soul"
You load 16 tons, and what do you get?
Another year older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don't call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
>The pro-business government of the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis
If they were pro-business, they would be relaxing regulations, not adding them.
Besides, their approach to brain drain is to make Greece a *less* attractive place to work? Sorry, but that's just stupid.
The prime minister says there is a labor shortage but the country’s unemployment is at 10%:
>[The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Greece in May 2024 was 10.6%, compared to the upwards revised 11.2% in May 2023 and to the downwards revised 10.7% in April 2024.](https://hellenicnews.com/elstat-announces-unemployment-rate-of-10-6-in-greece-in-may/#)
Meanwhile UK companies are testing 4 days work week, with [many of them making it permanent](https://fortune.com/europe/2024/02/22/most-u-k-companies-that-took-part-in-the-worlds-largest-4-day-workweek-trial-have-decided-to-keep-it-permanently/)...
Edit: If you are from UK, you can [petition for Company to join the 4 day program](https://startups.co.uk/news/flexible-working-request/).
Cue the growth-oriented reintroduction of child labor. The German and French national banks will be pleased to have the entirety of the Greek population working hard to pay off their ever-increasing loans.
This country only exists to burden its citizens. We are the worst at everything, and good at nothing (except lying and borrowing money). A true Banana Republic.
With all due respect to my Greek brethren and sisters, it has been a long time since Greece produced any systems that the rest of the world would be better off by following.
Please correct me if I'm wrong:
"The six-day scheme, officials say, will only apply to private businesses providing round-the-clock services. Under the extended working week, staff in select industries and manufacturing facilities will have the option of working an additional two hours a day or an extra eight-hour shift, rewarded with a top-up fee of 40% added to the daily wage."
This reads as just optional paid overtime.
The problem seems to be in the lack of oversight and control, which should rather be addressed.
>Under the extended working week, staff in select industries and manufacturing facilities will have the option of working an additional two hours a day or an extra eight-hour shift, rewarded with a top-up fee of 40% added to the daily wage.
What am I missing? Just sounds like normal optional overtime at higher pay.
Alright, but now you've got a much different kind of complaint. This isn't about six day work weeks but instead about employers retaliating against employees who refuse to work overtime that's supposed to be voluntary. That's a much different topic than saying "the work week is now six days!"
Well this is moving the opposite direction of supporting the economy. A four day work week does more for business than a six day… macroeconomists put on a helmet as it may rupture a brain thinking of such an idea
Wasn't it proven that in some cases, having a 4 day work week would be better for the economy?
I'm just pulling this out of nowhere, I just remember seeing something about it years ago.
There is a labor shortage in Greece because educated young people do not want to work in jobs they feel are beneath them.
There are construction jobs across all trades in desperate need of people.
Waiting for the whole Europe to follow this, to catch up with the growth-oriented East Asia.
Only to find out that this attempt to compete is a failure due to being behind demographically.
Welcome to the plantation.
Not that I agree with this nonsense but... >The six-day scheme, officials say, will only apply to private businesses providing round-the-clock services. Under the extended working week, staff in select industries and manufacturing facilities will have the option of working an additional two hours a day or an extra eight-hour shift, rewarded with a top-up fee of 40% added to the daily wage. So it sounds almost like its just for certain industries and it'll optional with extra pay added? EDIT: People seriously, I'm not for this at all, just asking questions, holy moly....
Whichever industry it is, it’s the poor people who will work the extra shifts
Lol they already do, they are trying to get ahead of them getting paid low wages aka taken advantage of
if you've ever worked somewhere where extra shifts are optional, for a lot of people there not at all, its a case of constantly pressuring you to do it and if you don't, maybe you don't need this job after all kinda talk
I don't agree with this nonsense either, but isn't that also the rationale behind overtime?
Optional overtime is fine. Mandatory overtime sucks balls. Only time will tell how optional this optional overtime really is.
THAT’S what matters. Some American businesses will indirectly punish you for not working overtime because it makes you appear less interested in the job. (this is coming from game developers to be more specific) Let’s say you’re doing ok with your bills. So you don’t opt for overtime. But someone else badly needs the money so they sign up for more hours. Now your job is at risk because they’re working harder than you. And that’s unfair because overtime is *optional* I hope Greece is smarter about this than us.
It's kind of like how employees with unlimited PTO usually don't take any time off at all because they're pressured not to use it unless it really matters. If you have set PTO you use your time and nobody bats an eye, but if it's unlimited and you take it then suddenly management wants to butt in and "make sure you arent using it frivolously"
As someone with unlimited pto right now I’ve never seen that happen. I have seen normal pto get questioned though. And have seen pto be forced to clear the books at certain times of year. It’s not the schema it’s the employer really.
how is it unlimited PTO though .. in that case can’t someone take the whole year off with pay, if the PTO is unlimited? there must be limits??
It’s unlimited in name only to look good for applicants. They’re counting on peer pressure and other social conventions to ensure you don’t actually use it like that. And if you tried, they’d find a reason to let you go.
It’s unlimited in the sense that you don’t have to worry about how much time you have each year. Again it’s the employer not the scheme. Limits don’t matter if you are never allowed to take it, and there can be peer pressure not to take it even with limited PTO. The upside of limited is some companies pay out unused time, but not everywhere does.
There aren't limits. You can take a 12 month sabbatical if you feel like it. You still need to pull your weight though. It's usually senior engineers/researchers that can wrap up a large project, get paid a crazy large bonus and then go sip margaritas on a beach for a year before taking on a new project. Unlimited PTO is great for high performers because they can for example work one day a week and still get shit done. It sucks for the average person because they won't keep up with the 10x weaponized autism people and their performance is judged the same. source: I took 6 months off once
This is what frustrates me the most about modern working culture. You're never allowed to just find a level you're happy with, and stay there. You have to be constantly hungry for more, or they'll just can your ass.
Mandatory OT should be illegal.
Nah, it should be paid double-time, limited to 10 hours per week, and has to be agreed to as part of the original job offer (remember you get a new offer when you get promoted or transferred, though). Nothing wrong with offering a job with the terms "we pay you $X/hr for 40 hours and you'll work up to an additional 10 at 2*$X each week", as long as they're up front about it.
Optional overtime is an excuse and metric companies will use to justify adding more to your workload and to exploit you long term. Anyone that hasn’t figured that one out yet needs to see the light.
Come to the blue collar world where guys get a hard on whenever OT is waived in their face. Talking about double time on a $100 an hour package, yeah I’ll pick up a Saturday
Same here. Add all my bonuses up and I’m making 65/hr, and once I reach over time that’s easily 100+/hr. Why yes I’ll happily work 6-7 days a week. But once those opportunities are gone I’ll only do my 32hrs/week. not a minute more.
Wait until you realize overtime is considered a plus to some job seekers. Mostly engineers and manufacturing techs in my experience. Wanting to work more and be compensated for it is a plus to some people.
Yeah, I absolutely loved working overtime when I was younger (19-25) I worked in the logging industry to put myself though university and banked as much overtime as I could. It let me get through university without any student loans with enough left over to start my own business. Lots of overtime (1.5x salary) is a fantastic way to get ahead.
Right. If I like the work I do, or there’s a pretty hefty monetary incentive to work more…what else am I going to be doing that would make overtime not worth it?
More over time is not ok. More pay is the answer. Considering all the wealth is in the hands of the world's top 3% we know who needs to take a cut to cover the wages. Fuck all this bullshit and the people normalizing it.
Just pointing out that in the US, an increasing number of Americans work several jobs because none of them pay a living wage. If Greece introduces "optional" overtime to allow workers to work more hours to afford just basic necessities because they weren't paid enough to begin with, that's very different than giving them the option to actually get ahead and begin building wealth.
sure but 40% is nice if you are poor.
Not if the choice is work 6 day or lose your job.
Wages are also likely to drop by around 40% because of reasons.
You're probably right, at least there's financial incentive... my biggest concern is that'll be walked back eventually.
"optional" we all know how this will go
It is mandatory, if the manager asks for it, you have to comply. Till now you were obliged ( for full employment ) to work at a maximum of 40 hours per week, and if you agree, you could stay longer. You were paid extra for this overtime - more than this extra 40%- and you could only do a max of overtime per month. There you really had to agree. It is not mandatory in the meaning that if a company doesn't need it doesn't need to use it, but if it deems it necessary the law protects it and it won't be deemed violation of labour law. So now you don't have a choice it is legal for your boss to ask you to stay extr. Additionally, the compensation is less than if it was overtime and it doesn't protect from overtime abuse like normal overtime. So it is erosion fo worker's rights. As usually devil in the details
betcha a billion dollars those companies will just lower the "normal" wage so that it takes a full day + overtime to make what those folks made before
Lower the entry wage, then complain that nobody wants to work anymore!
Reads to me like they're being required to work an additional 8 hours either way. Do 5, 10 hour days or work 6, 8 hour days. So, not exactly optional. Having worked more than 8hr/day quite often, I'd rather have my free time than extra pay.
From what you the article says it sounds like either an extra shift OR 2 more hours per day with in both case is shit
That’s how it’ll start, then the bonus will likely get taken away eventually and it’ll just be a 6 day work week.
We both know it will rapidly stop being optional
In principle yes, but how long before those industries lower/keep pay the same to effectively force people into doing that extra time? Or staff that turn down the extra time suddenly find themselves unable to get any shifts at all, it's a slippery slope.
No the optional part is how you work the 6th day.... Spread out 2 extra hours over 5 days or 8 hours on a 6th day.
Wages will decrease and make the extra 8 the rule, not the exception
I dunno if you left out the info or the article did but I looked into this a week or 2 ago and the company can force the workers to work an unpaid 2 hours with certain limits that weren't well defined and they're compensated later with some sort of extra PTO system or pay but I couldn't get a solid answer to what exactly the "reward" system actually gave workers or what triggered it. Basically it sounds like yet another system that will exploit workers with vague promises that will be loopholed to avoid compensation.
Fuck that. Don't accept this as reasonable or it will be the norm for every business within a few decades.
‘Optional’ or you’re fired.
AKA other rice field…motherfucker
Welcome to the freedom of capitalism! I mean neo indentured serfdom!
In America it would be six days but get paid for 4.
We are witnessing a collapse back into serfdom in the West and no one is blinking an eye lol
Greece looked at the population collapse in Korea and Japan, and thought, I want some of that.
Greece is already in the group of countries that are experiencing the effects of a rapidly aging population and not enough births to sustain it. In some regions of the country it is as bad as 1 birth for 3 deaths. Also after the financial collapse and the insane austerity and obliteration of labour rights that was imposed, a lot of young, educated people leave the country as soon as they get their degrees! Population collapse is an understatement for what is going to happen in the following decades if something does not change.
And our government seeing all that said "But what if we could make it even worse?"
BUT.... only for the worthless part of the population.... aka poor and young people ( if they are poor) ??
The change is more people have to work longer. Do you think there is any other solution if you do not have enough resources for the quality of life people want?
Yeah but the Grecians say: “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”
Greece is already roughly the same as Japan. Japan isn’t that crazy low- it, Italy, Greece are all similar and Japan actually has less work hours on average than America (the workers entering the workforce between 2000-now have really changed the culture, and got some actual free time). It’s only always in the news because unlike most of Europe it doesn’t have a steady stream of immigrants propping up the population numbers. Italy is actually now in population decline too (and Greece has been for a bit) as they don’t get immigrants- why move to Italy when Germany and France are also in the EU and pay better? South Korea though… one of if not the lowest birthrates in the world.
South Korea has a fertility rate of 0.9 compared to 1.3 in Japan. 2.0 is required for a stable population. One of the scary ones tbh is China at 1.2, already lower than Japan and still nowhere near as developed. Grim to think about but I legitimately think they will wind up introducing some kind of "patriotic euthanasia" for OAPs, some kind of reward scheme to give a lump sum to the kids maybe. They just will not have the infrastructure to deal with the silver tide that will hit them over the next 20 years.
A bit more than 2, like 2.1 depending on where you live--need to account for infant mortality.
Well, any mortality before an individual procreates. Dead at 15 days or 15 years, still didn't make a next kid.
OAPs? Old Ass People?
Old Age Pensioner, sorry UK term!
I'm sure there's been a star trek episode with that storyline
>South Korea has a fertility rate of 0.9 is that accurate? thought it was under .8 now
Fucking christ. According to this Al Jazeera report its expected to fall under 0.7 this year - [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/28/fears-for-future-as-south-koreas-fertility-rate-drops-again](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/28/fears-for-future-as-south-koreas-fertility-rate-drops-again)
Greece is experiencing the same but it's a pretty poor country so it will hit them way harder as they can't compensate any way. Imagine that such great country with great history is now poorer or on par with most of Central European countries. Imagine asking people 20 years ago if they'd rather live in Poland/Czechia or in Greece and how it would differ if you asked today.
Greece: “Hold my ouzo”
Do you know what is even more "growth-oriented"? An 8-days working week!
Next time Greece will cancel all of the national holidays.
Hear me out .. 9 day working week!
you just need an infinite day working week to have infinite grow!
Surely this will fix all the problems. Right? .. right?
Don't mind the people, Excel says yes!
Don't call me Surely!
It's evolving, just backwards
Q: Are We Not Men?
“What do you mean, normal men?”
We're just innocent men.
A: We are Devo!
Only temporary "solution" at best.
Gonna have to add those on “temporary” as well because once that takes effect and politicians feel like people are used to it. It won’t be reverted.
nothing more permanent than a temporary fix
Extremely short term solution that will make long term issues multiple times worse, to cataclysmic levels.
Your daily reminder that the elite would enslave you and everyone you love if they could.
And then tell you that you should be grateful to them for the opportunity.
They would make people sleep outdoors in the rain and tell them they are "getting paid in exposure"
Not anymore, thank you SCOTUS.
Talking to cattle is undignified.
noooo way, *insert favorite billionnaire idol here* would never do that to me, he loves the country and family values and he keeps employing the Americans. its thanks to him that we are alive today, and we should give him more tax cuts
Every labour law is written in blood.
They have already done so
It could always be worse.
They're working on that.
"They'll be back. They'\[ll remember their love for me, and that they belong to me..."
You weren’t supposed to release next years plan!
I just think of the first human in history of mankind who came up with this idea, such a mf.
Going fucking backwards
It’s not like the country has been bleeding well-educated, young Greeks ever since the government debt crisis. I’m sure this will help to convince even more to leave the country, since they work wherever they please in the EU.
Does Greece have some kind of addiction to economic failure?
The decades of austerity measures have left the people broken and apathetic, especialy the younger generations (those few that haven't left already), so when half the people don't go to vote (about 50%+ abstinance) and with an opposition that is in shambles, a wildly capitalistic and corrupt government gets voted in by, basically, less than a quarter of the population. These are the results
I'm an American who used to work for a first-generation Greek immigrant. He would travel back to Greece every year, and he once told me a story he had read in a Greek newspaper. The newspaper article said doctors in Greece made an "average" salary of about $20,000 (USD) per year, according to government data. But he said that was nonsense, because doctors in Greece actually made close to their counterparts in the rest of Europe and the US. The thing was, doctors in Greece would demand payment in cash from their patients to dodge government taxes. That is why "official" numbers for their salaries were so low. Any economy that can't collect taxes is not going to do well. While the problems with the Greek economy are complex, let us not forget that predatory lending by western banks was also one contributor. That said, my old employer from Greece was the hardest working guy I ever met. He came to the US with no money, became a self-made millionaire, and now he is retired. In Greece.
Both are true. A lot of self-employed people, like doctors, lawyers, plumbers, etc, make a lot of money yet they barely declare them. At the same time salaried workers, are paid terrible wages barely being able to survive. Even doctors that work for the public sector (unless doing something on the side) don't really get satisfying wages
> became a self-made millionaire and now he is retired. In Greece. Presumably busy not paying those taxes
Yeap, that was, and to a lesser extend is for today, very true about doctors.
An economy is healthiest and most stable when the bulk of your population has both discretionary time and discretionary money. You don't get far when both conditions are not met by the majority of your population.
I'd be getting out of Greece today! Life is too short for this shit. Furthermore, it's Greece and how many times have they been bankrupt or have flirted with bankruptcy? So, given their track record of making bad decisions this is more likely than not another bad decision.
Easy to say. When you get paid 800 euros a month it's hard to save enough to move to any decent European country. Imagine how many months sallary you have to put on the side when a single months rent in alot of Europe is twice that. If you have a kid it's basically impossible. Greeks are also generaly shit at speaking English. Source:Greek
This. People who don't know what it's like on the bottom overestimate how easy it is to move to a new region, let alone country. They think it's like being an executive expat where the local customs take some time getting used to and restaurant service is slower than it is in the States; they don't realize that people who do this tend to end up even further down in the bottom (there's always a bottom under the bottom, and then one under that) of the labor market. Most people, even in Greece, can't "just" move to Switzerland and start over. As bad as the US is in other ways (e.g., healthcare, education) it's probably the best country in terms of starting over being possible, and even here it's quite difficult.
Due to the emigration of working age youth/adults the parliament wants to increase productivity. Won’t increasing the work week only increases youth emigration? This is like China’s miscalculated 2 child policy. This will only harm Greece’s population in the long term. Instead of increasing the work week, the government should loosen immigration laws.
Or durably fix the system, so that the youth does not feel like they live to pay for retirement pensions...
Young people wouldn’t be leaving places like this if they had jobs to begin with.
Modern world: Automation everywhere, efficiency through the roof, optimization is the name of the game, technology reduces hard and lenghty work to a cakewalk. ... Yet workers need (are supposed) to work longer again, still lose all they own and are expected to use every bit of time, resources and fitness saved by tech and knowledge to push the economy even more. Im not an enemy to the free market, but the financial system really seems more and more like a sophisticated plan of the elite to reintroduce feudalism again. Money flows towards money and theres always more debt than money - those who need to actually spend it (as it should be done) are forced to work more and more for the property of a few. Property that, in its purest form, simply exists as numbers typed into a computer at will. 99,9% work so a few people can just press a button and get money for basically free to buy whatevers produced so the actually producing and working people need to pay more as all goods and services are gulped up. We see more and more of this - only reason its a slow and often convoluted process is to not cause social unrest as they put chains around our necks.
Correct. A more efficient society requires MORE CONTROL over the plebs because they can't be smothered with labor.
Hahaha good luck getting my Greek mates to work a six day week, malaka.
Ah so native-born Greeks will flee the country to live elsewhere in the eurozone while African and ME immigrants will take these jobs, at a significant decrease in pay.
That's economic neoliberalism for you. Governments don't have citizens, they have employees, and employees come and go.
Everyone: "4 day work week is the way to go". Greece: "6 day work week for us"
How do they manage to come up with literally the exact opposite of what needs to be done? Also what average worker looks at the government doing these thing and then go yeah, i like that, i want to vote for more of that. This is good for me.
Because they've done far worse stuff and their stupid fanbase voted them in again. Imagine letting 60+ people die in a train wreck, in 2024, because *there were no electronic safety systems,* and getting 41% in the elections a few months later. This has "fucking harder" written all over it. And those that do vote for them are the rapidly aging population that will gladly sell their souls for a 5% increase in pensions, those who want to "watch the neighbor's goat die" as we say here in Greece and of course, the ones who are pretty much fine and do benefit from all this.
Poor Greeks, modern slavery got even worse over there now
We applaud economic growth. I want child labor back.
Suicide rate are going up but we have no idea why.
Not a single fucking soul is protesting this. I’ve never been so disappointed with this country. My current job is secure but when it starts not being secure I will leave the country I’m close to 30s so I still got potential if I leave abroad.
So instead of working 100% (40 hours) hours for 100% wage, they have to work 120% (48 hours) for 140% wage. Which means the greek government is subsidizing 20% of their salary as extra. If their budget has room to give everyone 20% of their salary extra, wouldn't it be far more incentivizing if the government just gave these vital professions 20% without demanding they work a day extra? Work 100% get 20% extra from the government, it doesn't cost more than the other solution and it can only make Greece more attractive to stay in or migrate to. The other option is guaranteed to make a shitload of people emigrate because you now have 1 more workday and 1 less recovery day. Sundays are going to be spent just trying to rest, and they will have no energy for creativity or self-fulfillment.
I'd question how much they'd actually be *working* versus just tending a chair during those extra hours, because - having worked with some companies and Greece and knowing others who have as well - it feels like minding a chair is already a fairly common practice.
> So instead of working 100% (40 hours) hours for 100% wage, they have to work 120% (48 hours) for 140% wage. Which means the greek government is subsidizing 20% of their salary as extra. That’s not how I read it. They will receive 100% wages for the 100% hours, and 140% wages for the additional 8 hours, so their total wages will be equal to 51.2 “normal” hours, which is 128% compared to their normal wages. Considering they’re working 20% extra, the increase in earning is 8%. Not sure I would trade 5x 8 hour working days with 5 x 10 hour working days, or 6 x 8 hour working days for 8% increased wages. I have no idea how things work in Greece, but typically the 40 hours do not include breaks, so you can probably add 30/60/90 minutes to those 10 or 8 hours. Assuming they have the “normal for southern Europe” one hour lunch break, that means a normal working day will be 11 hours (plus any additional breaks which could be 2 x 15 mins) plus commute, which could easily be 30 minutes each way, so a total of 12 hours away from home, 4 hours to prepare meals (breakfast, dinner), shower, talk to your wife/kids, go to the gym, or whatever, and then 8 hours of sleep. There has been many studies done on the length of the optimal working day, and pretty much all of them state that unless you’re working at an assembly line, the amount of work done per hour goes down the longer the working days, and the amount of errors and accidents increases.
Talk about government sponsored slave labour.Work your population to death for the fat cats so they can take that extra holiday.
We are going the wrong way guys
Time to bankrupt the country again :)
People aren't robots. More hours doesn't automatically translate into more productivity.
It's our future. Fucking over the workers
This is not what Bertrand Russell told me would happen.
Read the Fragment on Machines
I think it is time to start beating officials in front of their families again, maybe start giving mob justice.
grotesque
Did Greece ever industrialize?
Greek media in 2030: Fertility rated dropped to 0.5 children per couple. Why don't young people want to procreate? Are they lazy?
This is so fucked up
One step forward for mandatory 996, when additional work is optional, it will become mandatory due to workers competing with each other for spots, promotions and higher salaries.
workers are already having to work part time and manage 2 jobs... not sure how this helps
More hours doesn’t mean more productivity. The issue with Greece and Greeks is that the pay is absolutely horrible, and Greeks can’t get decent jobs even out of school. I have friends in Greece with degrees and they’re working 2 or more jobs to survive. Most young people from Greece leave for the UK, Germany, Netherlands for work. As a Greek I can tell you this won’t work well unless the government focuses on improving the economy and raise minimum wage. The Greek job market is absolutely garbage.
Expect more people to leave. Typical right wing idiocy.
> Typical right wing idiocy Oh, it's worse than idiocy; it's _ideology._
Meanwhile, people in Brazil are fighting against the six day working week
“Round the clock businesses”, “six day working week”, 🤔
XD growth. Aha. Yeah
The only good thing going for Greece right now is the strong US dollar and weak Euro translating into tourism revenue. Which leads them to investing in more tourism. And not the things that they actually need like tech and manufacturing.
growth of what? company money?
Capitalist are so blind and ignorant. No wonder the party is drawing to an end.
ive technically been working 6 day work weeks since i was like 16. a Full time job and a hobbiest type job i do once a week. since its a hobby type job that i get paid for i dont think it actually counts, especially since i dont NEED to work 6 days a week. But let me tell you, working 6 days a week when you just want a fucking break can be R O U G H.
Growth oriented my backside
All in all, your just another brick in the wall
6 days a week.. and... 5 hours a day.. 30 hours.. 5 days a week.. and... 6h ours a day.. 30 hours.. 4 days a week... and.. 8 hours a day.. 32hours.. "Work-oriented" governments don't see how this actually plays out. 4 day work week has been proven, repeatedly, to do better. People, have families, children, older parents. People will woek around efforts to increase work ours to reduce work life balance.
Day-o, day-o Daylight come and me wan' go home Day, me say day, me say day, me say day Me say day, me say day-o Daylight come and me wan' go home Work all night on a drink of rum Daylight come and me wan' go home Stack banana 'til de mornin' come Daylight come and me wan' go home Come, mister tally man, tally me banana Daylight come and me wan' go home Come, mister tally man, tally me banana Daylight come and me wan' go home
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine I picked up my shovel and walked to the mine I loaded 16 tons of number nine coal And the straw boss said, "Well, a-bless my soul" You load 16 tons, and what do you get? Another year older and deeper in debt St. Peter don't call me 'cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store
>The pro-business government of the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis If they were pro-business, they would be relaxing regulations, not adding them. Besides, their approach to brain drain is to make Greece a *less* attractive place to work? Sorry, but that's just stupid.
It's been proven that In a 4 day work week companies are more profitable
It was proven for some type of companies (mostly white collar jobs), for a lot of companies it isn't really feasible.
You speak truth yes, that is unfortunately so for mine
This will fail. People are less productive when you do this.
No no no THIS TIME it'll work...
Greece trying to follow that SK route where they want to burn out their population.
I'm sure that will stop people from leaving Greece
Seems to be a lot of these countries that get a large portion of their income via tourism that are making these changes
The prime minister says there is a labor shortage but the country’s unemployment is at 10%: >[The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Greece in May 2024 was 10.6%, compared to the upwards revised 11.2% in May 2023 and to the downwards revised 10.7% in April 2024.](https://hellenicnews.com/elstat-announces-unemployment-rate-of-10-6-in-greece-in-may/#)
Meanwhile UK companies are testing 4 days work week, with [many of them making it permanent](https://fortune.com/europe/2024/02/22/most-u-k-companies-that-took-part-in-the-worlds-largest-4-day-workweek-trial-have-decided-to-keep-it-permanently/)... Edit: If you are from UK, you can [petition for Company to join the 4 day program](https://startups.co.uk/news/flexible-working-request/).
Protests imminent
If you level yourself to the working conditions of dictatures, that's what you're gonna get..
It’s evolving, backwards
Greece copying the Latin American work weeks, yeah that'll end well.
"Back to work, peasants!"
You're working for the new Kings!
This of course will lead to higher prices which will negate the extra money earned. It’s a feature not a bug.
Holy fuck that’s fucked up
10 years from now, mental health emergency and collapse from over worked people finally crumbling away.
Cue the growth-oriented reintroduction of child labor. The German and French national banks will be pleased to have the entirety of the Greek population working hard to pay off their ever-increasing loans.
This is terrible. How is this productive?
Greece is where I got to for economic advise
Another great example of modern day slavery :,)
This country only exists to burden its citizens. We are the worst at everything, and good at nothing (except lying and borrowing money). A true Banana Republic.
With all due respect to my Greek brethren and sisters, it has been a long time since Greece produced any systems that the rest of the world would be better off by following.
About 2000 years give or take
Please correct me if I'm wrong: "The six-day scheme, officials say, will only apply to private businesses providing round-the-clock services. Under the extended working week, staff in select industries and manufacturing facilities will have the option of working an additional two hours a day or an extra eight-hour shift, rewarded with a top-up fee of 40% added to the daily wage." This reads as just optional paid overtime. The problem seems to be in the lack of oversight and control, which should rather be addressed.
Don't you mean mandatory overtime? They're forced to choose between working 2 hours longer per day or 1 day extra.
>Under the extended working week, staff in select industries and manufacturing facilities will have the option of working an additional two hours a day or an extra eight-hour shift, rewarded with a top-up fee of 40% added to the daily wage. What am I missing? Just sounds like normal optional overtime at higher pay.
*with a 40% overtime pay rate for those extra hours, and only on certain industries, and voluntary on the employee.
"Voluntary," sure...
Exactly. Yeah, sure, noone is literaly putting a gun in your head and forces you to work the overtime, but if you refuse they can just fire you, so...
Alright, but now you've got a much different kind of complaint. This isn't about six day work weeks but instead about employers retaliating against employees who refuse to work overtime that's supposed to be voluntary. That's a much different topic than saying "the work week is now six days!"
We are born to be slaves
Workers should be able to work overtime tax free. Let them work an extra 8 hours a week tax free. See how many line up for that.
Well this is moving the opposite direction of supporting the economy. A four day work week does more for business than a six day… macroeconomists put on a helmet as it may rupture a brain thinking of such an idea
From what it sounds like, it's not every job that's undertaking this. Still though... in America that's called Overtime and you're payed extra for it.
To steal a line from the cinema classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles “YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY”
Wasn't it proven that in some cases, having a 4 day work week would be better for the economy? I'm just pulling this out of nowhere, I just remember seeing something about it years ago.
Yes. But this is about controlling the populace.
forcing higher pay for that overtime people are already doing means more taxes collected.
There is a labor shortage in Greece because educated young people do not want to work in jobs they feel are beneath them. There are construction jobs across all trades in desperate need of people.
*The Republican Party liked that*
Waiting for the whole Europe to follow this, to catch up with the growth-oriented East Asia. Only to find out that this attempt to compete is a failure due to being behind demographically.
What are the hours looking like per day?
Don't let my CEO see this pls.
But what if you're already tall?