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.
Yeah, that’s certainly one odd aspect. Also, there’s a ton of other methods to handle labour shortages. Like activating underused groups, such as women. Or offering retraining so people can switch to different jobs. And higher pay for sectors with shortages doesn’t hurt either, considering the already very low pay in Greece.
Running your existing workforce ragged is NOT the way to deal with this.
But hey, maybe we’re missing some cultural or political piece of the puzzle as to why they went this route.
@finishingDutch@lemmy.world @nogooduser@lemmy.world lol, you try to find logic. I’m Greek. This government almost constantly tries (and unfortunately manages…) to push measures using some very twisted logic. The main idea behind all these is that they are gonna profit from it. Also by keeping the people busy with work it’s gonna make it less likely to act against the government or even socialize with other people, thus worsening any unity among the people. And they mask it as a good measure.
It’s the same people who tried to convince us that bringing private universities will be good, again using their illogical logic. (They pushed this during the winter exams so that students wouldn’t rise against, but fortunately the gov’s actions were met with huge resistance. Still, even after all this they passed the law…)
This political party is trying very hard to dismantle Greece and take us years back years. And it’s their second term in a row… It’s their 5th year in power in a row and we have at least ~3 more years…
Now it’s fire season, you can watch us as Greece will soon be burning literary and the gov will ~only try to evaccuate areas and blame it to the people instead of being proactive against wildfires (or combating them with proper means).🥲
Every labor shortage is a capital shortage. If you compensate better for pretty much any job people will work them. It’s employers trying to shift the blame, but if they want 500 widgets but can only afford to employ enough staff to make 50 widgets it’s not the employees fault they didn’t get an extra 450 widgets for free, labor doesn’t work that way.
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.”
Easier to beat them than to pay
Prevent them from leaving by offering better… How does this not further the idea of ‘well eff this place, bye!’
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.
Headline in three months: “Less work getting done than in five-day week.”
Government and management will blame lazy workers. Workers will blame government, management and burnout. Truth will be closer to the latter, but a few actually lazy employees and some innocent scapegoats will be fired to preserve the bottom line. Burnout will increase.
But at least the bosses got their bonus this month.
“Government introduces new seven-day work week to compensate for decreased productivity”
Nah. I’m sure they’ll go straight for the 8-day work week. Gotta think outside the box here taps head
That’s interesting. A shorter week is the way things are trending, and seems to mostly offset the loss of total productivity with better productivity-per-time. I wonder if this will actually help anything.
Narrator: It didn’t.
Greece gonna Greece, I guess.
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No it won’t. Plenty of studies show decreasing overall productivity when workers work longer weeks.
This is just meant to make workers suffer more.
seems to mostly offset the loss of total productivity with better productivity-per-time
Actually, it MORE than offsets it, leading to MORE overall productivity from not having exhausted and unhappy workers
Per that study, anyway. I expect it differs quite a bit across industries, for one thing.
They have 10% unemployment… it won’t
Depends what.
Customer-facing work: you can stay open longer.
Office work: yeah, since productivity plummets, I don’t think it helps much, if at all.
Step 1: Let asylum seekers drown in the Mediterranean Sea
Step 2: Greek people have to work 6 days a week
Step 3: ?
I saw this argument / line of thought in a couple of similar topics already, and I gotta say this really only works if your oblivious enough to believe all/most asylum seekers want to stay in Greece.
But sure, it’s a nice catchphrase.
Well who would want to stay where the workweek is so grueling? Make it a 30 hour week, cut the application paperwork, and see who stays
The application process for jobs is so asinine. On purpose. Gotta put the wage slaves in their place by forcing them to do unpaid labor shuffling papers around for HR.
Fair enough, simple solutions to complex problems are rarely sufficient.
It is still bizarre if you think about it.
So while the world is trying to go to 4 day work week, here’s the Greeks going the opposite direction.
wait till you visit(or revisit) South Koreas attempt to normalize 69 hour work weeks
Nice… Wait a minute…
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.
I think you’ve never been there, right?
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They couldn’t even track or enforce their previous 5 day work week when errant employers made their workers work beyond 5 days or mandated maximum hours, there is no chance in hell they will catch unpaid overtime.
Dear Greeks out there, Germany has a shortage of 700.000 skilled workers and every town has a Greek restaurant.
At least when this inevitably shows a drop in productivity it can be used as ammo for reducing the workweek.
I don’t get it. If the reason for this really is that there are not enogh workers present, then I why won’t the employees tell their employers to go fuck themselves? I mean it doesn’t sound like there aren’t enough job offers on the market.
Attract more skilled workers by making the conditions worse. This has to make the top 10 worse economic government decisions list.
This seems like an excellent way for the governing party to lose big time in elections.
I would quit my job so fast
If you don’t need it
I would just kill myself.
But then my loved ones would be sad I won’t be around to be exploited at my 3 part time jobs, or pay monthly tribute to my landed lord!
I thought this said geeks not greeks and then I got confused. That’s wild, in North America some companies are pretending to want 4 day work weeks (like my old one that laid me off last year) and then in Greece they’ve actually gone ahead and implemented 6 day work weeks. Reminds me of China’s 966 except this is actually legal apparently.
Just in time for 40c days too
