21 Nov 2009 On 'Work, work and more work'
Athens News, Issue No. 13365, 23 Nov 2009
Work, work and more work
by Damian Mac Con Uladh
The deteriorating work-life balance in Greece is counterproductive for both employer and employee, says economist Chr. Ioannou.
THANASIS says his working day is pretty common. “Everyone I know is in the same situation,” said the 34-year-old commercial director. “I put in a 50-hour week - and that doesn’t include the hours I sometimes have to put in over the weekend when something urgent comes up.”
Currently employed by a Greek multinational, Thanasis says he worked even more hours in a previous job.
“I left home at 7am and returned at 10.30pm, a long day which included 90-minute commute in each direction.”
The fact that his wife clocks up, on average, a 45-hour week has made for a trying family life for the couple, who have a young daughter.
The working day reality of many Greeks, he argues, “demolishes the prevalent view that our northern European counterparts work longer hours”.
Figures released earlier this month by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, reconfirm Greeks’ standing as putting in the longest working week in Europe, with Greeks averaging 42 hours.
It’s the culture
“People do work a lot in Greece, and they don’t realise it,” says social psychologist Kostas Kafetsios, who points to underlying cultural reasons for the lack of clear rules and regulations to safeguard workers.
“There are a lot of implicit things in Greek culture, which is collectivist,” explains Kafetsios, who lectures at the University of Crete. “In collectivist cultures, interest groups - such as workers and managers - do not explicitly communicate things clearly. People don’t want to have things clear and this produces gaps which are not regulated very well.”
The long Greek working week has more concrete origins in the 1990s, a period of high economic growth and heavy restructuring, according to Christos Ioannou (photo).
“There was more work and more money and a huge effort on the part of Greeks to catch up [with other EU countries] in terms of wages,” says Ioannou, an economist with expertise in human resources and employment relations.
He said that survey after survey has shown that “Greeks, when presented with the choice of less working time and less money, or more working time and more money, opt for the latter.”
They work for more money because of the low wages and low disposable incomes in Greece, Ioannou adds. “And they also want to finance their mortgages and consumption.”
Overtime
Ioannou cited the existence of a managerial prerogative on overtime - unique to Greece among the OECD countries - as contributing to the problem. This empowers employers to request workers to put in an extra five hours a week.
While employers often rely to this tool and to employee’s desire to do overtime, they don’t always follow the laws that specify higher rates of pay for this extra effort (see tables below).
For example, Trina, an employee at an educational publishing company, says that she is occasionally asked to do overtime when a project requires it, “but that this is not compensated financially, or with days off in lieu”.
Ioannou says that the smaller the company - and small and medium enterprises dominate the Greek economy - the less likely it is to find a proper system of work organisation that includes procedures or rule books on labour relations.
Thanasis agrees. In his experience, multinational companies have universal procedures which they apply uniformly in all the countries were they operate. And like his current employer, they sometimes help employees strike a positive balance between the job, home and recreation.
“The work-life balance is a non-issue for government policy, the unions and some employers,” says Ioannou. “It’s nowhere on the policy agenda, despite it being one of huge importance for workers and families in Greece, particularly in Athens.”
Possible solution
The economist says that codifying Greece’s fragmented and often contradictory labour laws, as many European countries have done, would make legislation easier to follow and to implement.
In addition, legalising working time accounts - where employees may work longer when needed but take this time off in lieu later - would greatly benefit employed parents with young children, for example.
As the law stands, this time management tool may only be used informally in the Greek context.
“Any employer doing so would be in big trouble if found out by the labour inspectors, as there is no legal provision for this method in Greece,” he warns.
Bizarrely, as Ioannou points out, even though an employer may agree to such an arrangement, he could later use it to dismiss the employee on the grounds that he failed to show up at work, or the employee could use it to report his employer.
One way out of the impasse, Ioannou says, would be a “Greek path to ‘flexicurity’”, which would give more flexibility to rigid sectors of the labour market while, at the same time, giving more security to the very flexible segments of the labour market.
Fallout
Today, the long working hours being put in by Greeks is leaving its mark on society.
“We work longer and longer, get some more money, but at the end of the day productivity is not high and we’re not happy,” Ioannou says.
Thanasis agrees. “It’s no accident that we have a dramatically shrinking population. In Greece, we need two incomes to survive, [leading to] Greeks having fewer children later.”
Having worked in the UK and the Netherlands, he says offices clear out soon after the official closing hour, whereas in Greece there exists a “pseudo team spirit” created in part by peer pressure.
“In a dog-eat-dog environment where everyone works long hours, it’s not the fear of losing your job - but the fear of not being seen as part of the team - that keeps individuals in the office longer.”
Average weekly full-time working hours
Greece 42.0
Germany 40.8
United Kingdom 40.8
European Union 40.3
France 38.3
Finland 37.8
Source: Eurostat
Who works what in Greece?
Average fulltime hours worked
Greece - EU
Professionals 35.2 - 39.4
Clerks 39.0 - 37.6
Armed forces 39.7 - 41.1
Technicians 40.3 - 38.8
Elementary occupations 41.4 - 39.0
Craft and trades workers 42.2 - 40.1
Skilled agricultural
and fishery workers 43.1 - 45.5
Service workers/shop staff 43.7 - 40.6
Plant and machine operators 44.6 - 40.3
Legislators, senior
professionals and managers 49.9 - 45.5
Source: Eurostat
Average hours worked (Fulltime employment)
Total - Male - Female
Greece 42.0 - 43.3 - 39.7
EU 40.3 - 41.4 - 38.5
Source: Eurostat
It’s the law
The legal working week in Greece is 40 hours
The employee may work five additional hours a week at the employer’s request. This so-called extra work is subject to a premium pay rate of 25 percent above the normal hourly rate. ‘Extra work’ does not count as part of the permissible overtime
The working week, including ‘extra work’ and overtime, may not exceed 48 hours
The maximum daily working time is fixed at 10 hours
Work in excess of 45 hours per week is treated as overtime and must be authorised by the labour inspectorate. Overtime of up to 120 hours per year must be remunerated at a premium of 50 percent above the standard rate, while annual overtime in excess of 120 hours attracts a pay premium of 75 percent above the standard rate. Overtime in excess of maximum working hours and not authorised by the labour inspectorate must be remunerated at 100 percent above the standard rate
Maximum working time does not apply to those in managerial posts
Where a collective agreement on working time organisation is in place, employees may work two additional hours per day and either work two days less later or take the accumulated time off in lieu as rest days
Source: Christos A. Ioannou, Managing Employment Relations in Greece: A Guide for Foreign Managers, Economia Publishing, 2009. 80pp. 12 euros
