European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
Eurofound's ERM database on restructuring-related legal regulations provides information on regulations in the Member States of the European Union and Norway which are explicitly or implicitly linked to anticipating and managing change.
-Law 4808/19.06.2021, Part IV: 'Labour Protection Regulations', Chapter A': 'Settings of Individual Labour Law', Articles 55, 57-59, 61-62, 67 on 'Telework', 68-72 on 'Digital Platforms' -Article 50, Part-time employment and work rotation schemes, par. 1 and 2 of Law 4611/2019; Circular 34186/564/18-8-2015 whole circular; Law 3986/2011, Article paragraph 1 and Law 3846/2010, Article 7
-Law 4808/19.06.2021 amends the previous provisions on working time and normal annual leave (leisure), and regulates telworking arrangements, as follows: with article 55, without specifying the legal weekly hours, a definition of "full employment" is given, which is defined in principle as the work of 40 hours/per week, distributed according to whether the company applies a five-day or six-day employment system; article 57 introduces the possibility of providing additional work by the part-time employee in a time that is not consecutive to the agreed hours of the same day; article 58 increases the annual hours of overtime work without changing the overtime due, while the increase of illegal overtime work increases; article 59 amends article 41, Law 1892/1990 in that, the implementation of a working time arrangement system no longer requires the consent of the employees' institutional representatives and an agreement with them; with article 61, it is possible to use up the annual normal leave (leisure) also within the first quarter of the following calendar year; article 62 regulates in particular the undoubtedly resulting (foreseen, also, in art. 361 of Greek Civil Code) possibility of the parties to agree to grant the employee leave without pay; article 67 on telework stipulates that despite the voluntary nature of teleworking, it can be applied unilaterally by decision of the employer, or at the request of the employee, in order to ensure public and personal health; the use of camera intended to monitor teleworkers is prohibited, protecting as such their privacy; the right to disconnect frin the computer, emails and phone calls during the non-working hours, is assured; workplace and telework hours should be registered in ERGANI Digital Information System. Under Law 4808/2021, it was determined that teleworking can be implemented in combination with work from the employer’s premises, as a hybrid work model; articles 68-72 on digital platforms introduce regulations on the legal nature of the relationship, the rights and obligations of digital platforms with the service providers connected to them. It also introduces a presumption as to the cases that are not characterized as a dependent employment relationship.
-Organisation of working time was instituted and readjusted with the 'Memorandum' labour act (Act 3986/2011), which introduced a series of new regulations with collective bargaining at the core. In brief, the relevant provisions establish that in firms with conventional working hours of up to 40 hours a week it is permitted for a certain period of time (a period of high workload) for an employee to work two hours more than the eight-hour day, on the condition that the weekly working hours which are in addition to the 40 hours or the minimum hours stated in the contract are subtracted from the weekly hours of another period (period of low employment).
In firms with conventional working hours of up to 40 hours a week, it is permitted, instead of the arrangement in the previous paragraph, to agree that up to 256 working hours from the total annual hours of employment in one calendar year may be allocated so that there is an increased number of hours during certain periods, which may not exceed 32 weeks annually, with a correspondingly reduced number of hours for the remaining periods of the calendar year.
Circular 34186/564/ 18 August 2015 set clarifications for non-compliance to Law 3863/10 according to which the unequal distribution of working hours across the days of the week is not prohibited, provided the total does not exceed 40 hours. Working fewer hours on one day and making up these hours on another day does not constitute part-time employment. It is therefore entirely lawful to distribute the 40 hours across the days of the week in such a way that on some days the working day is up to eight hours (for a six-day working week) or nine hours (for a five-day working week) and on the other days, less than 6.66 hours (for a six-day working week) and eight hours (for a five-day working week). If the total hours do not exceed 40 per week there is no additional work, and if the above daily limits are not met, there is no overtime either. In addition, Law 4611/2019 explicitly stated that the full employment of the employee is presumed in the case of non-compliance with the written form or non-notification of the agreement for part-time employment or work rotation or the employer’s decision to unilaterally enforce work rotation to the labour inspectorate.
Employees have the right to refuse the flexible working hours arrangement if they are not in a position to perform it and if their refusal is in good faith. Salaries for the periods of deviating working hours shall be those of the usual working hours. The organisation of working time is determined by firm-level collective labour agreements or by agreement between the employer and the trade union representing the firm’s members or by agreement between the employer and the works council or by agreement between the employer and an association of persons. The association of persons can be set up by at least 25% of the employees of a firm with more than 20 employees and 15% if the total number of employees is no more than 20. With firm-level and sectoral collective labour agreements, a different system for organising working time can be established, depending on the particularities of the sector of the firm.
Temporary dismissal of salaried workers
The conditions and procedure for temporarily laying off salaried employees have been put on a new basis with the 2010 labour act (Act 3846/2010). The relevant provisions establish that firms and undertakings with restricted economic activity may, instead of terminating an employment agreement, serve written notice temporarily laying off salaried employees for no longer than three months annually, provided they have first consulted with the employees’ legal representatives. Employee representatives are defined, in the following order of priority, as:
The notification may be via a single notice posted in a conspicuous and accessible place at the firm. Consultation occurs at a place and time set by the employer. At the end of the three-month period, the same employee cannot be temporarily laid off for at least another three months.
The relevant departments of the labour inspectorate (SEPE), the social insurance foundation (IKA) and the public employment service (OAED) must be notified by the employer in any manner of the declaration of temporary layoffs of all or part of the workforce.
For salaried employees in public utility firms or undertakings employing more than 5,000 salaried employees, approval is required from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, which is granted by application of the employer with the approval of the plenary supreme labour council.
During the period of temporary layoff, salaried employees receive half of the average of their full employment earnings for the previous two months. If the employer temporarily lays off salaried employees, the OAED pays those who remain unemployed while laid off 10% of the average of their regular full employment earnings for the previous two months. These allowances are paid for a maximum of three months every year.
Rotating employment
When drawing up a labour agreement or while it is in force, an employer and a salaried employee may, through an individual written contract, agree on any form of rotating employment. Rotating employment is considered to be employment for fewer days a week or fewer weeks a month or fewer months a year or a combination thereof compared to full-time work. The protection provided by this article also covers those employed on the basis of the agreements described in the previous section. Employers whose economic activity is limited may, instead of terminating the contract of employment, impose a system of rotating employment in their firms, the duration of which may not exceed nine months in the same calendar year, only providing they have previously informed and consulted the employees’ lawful representatives. Employee representatives are defined as above.
Part time and rotating employment are paid by the employer.
-With Law 4808/2021, the most drastic change of the last decades occurred in labour relations: a working time arrangement which deviates from the standard one (i.e. 40 hours per week and 8 hours per day in case of a 5 days’ work week) was already provided as an option by means of an agreement with the employee union; as of now, it becomes also possible. by means of an individual written agreement, following a request by the employee. In this context, it can be agreed that the employee will work two additional hours/per day on the same remuneration and, in exchange, they will work two hours less/per day during another period, or take time off, or a combination thereof. The annual overtime cap has increased to 150 hours up from 120 hours. Remote working requires an agreement between the employer and the employee, with two exceptions now: a) the employer can unilaterally impose remote working for public health protection reasons, following a relevant Ministerial Decision; and b) the employee can request to work remotely in case of evidenced health risk (due to specific health conditions to be set forth in a Ministerial Decision) which can be prevented by remote working. Employees who are caregivers, or who have children up to age 12, can request to work flexibly. This includes the right to time off from work on grounds of force majeure for urgent family reasons, remote working, flexible working hours or part-time employment. Remote workers now have the right to disconnect outside of their normal working hours, and are protected from discrimination for exercising this right. Concerning the working time organisation as regulated by art. 55, Law 4808/2021 it has been argued that the expediency of the independent definition by legislative provision of "full employment" is unclear and its usefulness doubtful, given that the negative definition of the corresponding concept of part-time employment in article 38 par. 1 and 2 of Law 1892/1990 and clause 3 of the framework agreement on part-time work contained in the annex of Directive 97/81/EC did not create doubts in theory and in practice. The association of this provision with others that determine maximum employment time limits, combined with the dubious ratio of the regulation, cannot be excluded from creating significant interpretive difficulties in practice.Concerning the possibility of providing -as stipulated in art. 57- 'additional work by the part-time employee in a time that is not consecutive to the agreed hours of the same day', this was not possible until today since, par. 7, article 38, Law 1892/1990 provided (and still provides) that 'if part-time employment has been determined with a daily schedule of shorter duration than normal, the provision of the agreed work of part-timers must be continuous and provided once a day'. Under art. 59, for the implementation of a working time arrangement, is now sufficient to draw up an agreement with the formal initiative of the employee, but also to adhere to a form document. With the new par. 12 it is defined that, the termination of the employment contract before the exhaustion of the period of reduced employment gives rise to a claim for compensation for exceeding the legal hours that preceded it, according to the provisions of the article 4 Law 2874/2000, as already amended by article 58, Law 4808/2021. The establishment of a possibility of exceeding the year as a reference period for the granting of annual regular leave (art. 61) without a specific reason is doubtful that it is in harmony with article 7, of Directive 2003/88/EC.Under art. 62, the agreement is now submitted in a constitutive form document. After the expiration of the leave, the rights and obligations of the parties from the dependent labour contract are revived. The legislator left unregulated the only issue perhaps worthy of regulation: the calculation or not of the time of unpaid leave for the establishment of the employee's rights. According to the jurisprudential approach that has been up to date, this time is taken into account for the calculation of the due severance pay, while reservations are formulated in theory.
-From January to September 2019, there were 2,173,467 new contracts (increase by 5.6%) of which 1,010,706 are full-time contracts (46.50%), 901,908 part-time (41.50%) and 260,853 (12%) rotating employment contracts. In 2016, there was a 20.5% increase of full-time contracts of employment compared with 2015, a 26.9% increase in part-time employment contracts and a 4.1% decrease in rotating employment contracts. New hires on part-time and rotating employment contracts represented 54.7% of all new contracts. In 2015, there was a 3.8% increase of full-time contracts of employment compared with 2014, a 19.6% increase in part-time employment contracts and a 45.6% increase in rotating employment contracts. New hires on part-time and rotating employment contracts represented 55.6% of all new contracts. In 2012, there was an 18.42% reduction in full-time contracts of employment compared with 2011, and a 3.61% increase in part-time employment contracts. New hires on part-time and rotating employment contracts represented 45% of all new contracts. In 2010, at the beginning of the crisis in the labour market, 26,253 alterations to contracts were registered with SEPE (labour inspectorate), of which 18,713 were altered from full-time to part-time and 7,540 from full-time to rotating employment. These figures rose in 2011 to 58,962 alterations to contracts (an increase of 124.6% compared to 2010), of which 32,420 were altered from full-time to part-time and 26,542 from full-time to rotating employment. In 2012, alterations to contracts rose again to 84,490 (an increase of 43.3% over 2011), of which 49,640 were altered from full-time to part-time and 34,850 from full-time to rotating employment.
Eurofound (2015), Greece: Working time flexibility, Restructuring legislation database, Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/legislationdb/working-time-flexibility/greece
Between the end of 2022 and the first half of 2023, almost 300,000 employees working for ‘big tech’ companies were laid off across the world, making headlines for months in global media. This development has been a shock, considering the high numbers of jobs in well-known tech corporations with a reputation for offering good working conditions and well-paid positions.
The retail banking sector is fertile ground for studying the impacts of digitalisation on work and employment. Financial services are increasingly provided online, without the intermediary of customer-facing institutions. Many banks in the sector have been undergoing serial restructuring since the global financial crisis, and it is one of the few service sectors with stagnant or declining employment.
Since 2011, the Restructuring support instruments database of the EU PolicyWatch has been collecting information on measures that assist companies and workers to anticipate and manage restructuring. This article looks at measures in the database aimed at supporting employees and employers during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2022).
Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor database reveals the impact of the energy crisis on employment in the EU. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, energy prices have hit record highs. The European Commission imposed sanctions and limitations on the import of oil and gas from Russia, which has reacted by reneging on supply commitments to many Member States.
