By S. Papapetros
A text circulated among members of an EU-affiliated “experts committee” considering best-practice reforms in Greece’s labor sector appears to confirm previous reports of an unbending stance by creditors vis-à-vis the leftist Greek government’s position of allowing little to no changes in workplace relations and the labor market framework.
As previously reported by “N”, representatives of creditors, particularly the IMF, are pushing for a bolder liberalization of the labor sector in the recession-battered country. The specific measures entailed in this direction are a reduction in payroll costs for employers, allowing the possibility of greater mass layoffs without labor ministry approval and eliminating bonuses linked with the so-called “13th” and “14th” monthly wages, which are still paid out by private sector employers to wage earners.
The Greek labor ministry emphasized that the text is not directed to the government in Athens, but instead to the relevant committee. Nevertheless, the positions outlined in the paper confirm the volition on the part of Greece’s institutional creditors to liberalize the sector in 2016, with demands expected to be linked with the successful completion of the second review of the Greek program (third bailout) in the autumn.
In terms of wage and salary policy, creditors are pressing for a minimum monthly salary to be set by the state; elimination of prior employment as a criterion for setting an employee’s wage scale by a new employer; an increase in the maximum allowed number of layoffs, from 6 percent of a business’ workforce to 10 percent, on a monthly basis, as well as calculating the minimum monthly pay rate without the extra salaries and bonuses, so that the figure is comparable to other EU member-states.
In a hurriedly released press statement, Greek labor minister Giorgos Katrougalos said the positions are part of a memo by creditors to the committee of experts, who in turn have been tasked with compiling and presenting a report on the EU’s best practices in the labor market and framework.
Katrougalos also claimed that the Tsipras government has succeeded in limiting whatever negotiations in the labor sector to only three items, which he ticked off as being a return to collective bargaining agreements, the issue of mass layoffs and the legal framework governing union activities.
In fact, the minister, a well-known attorney who represented unions and contract workers before entering politics and the Cabinet, said the last two items are “standing demands by the IMF, and echo its ideological devotion to the most extreme neo-liberalism…”
