www.cnbc.com/2024/07/02/greece-becomes-first-eu-country-to-introduce-a-six-day-working-week.html
Greece becomes first EU country to introduce a six-day working week
The problem in Greece is that over 50% of the population works for cash and doesn’t report income to the government. That’s a cultural issue that’ll be very difficult to ameliorate.
I’m reminded of taxation in Athens. If a house had a pool there was an extra tax. Few houses had pools. One day they flew some drones to take pictures of Athens.
Turned out there were 10’s of times more houses with pools than reported.
I swear that was France. I think Greece had more Ferraris registered than people in the top tax bracket or something like that though
Well damn. Clearly tax evasion in Greece doesn't make as big of a "splash" in the news since I only heard about France.
It was pretty big in german news throught greeks economical crisis around 2010 since we gave a lot of credits.
A few years later i ve been in Athen for vacation. The hotel, every restaurants, even the tiny corner bakery stand i bought a cheese bread for 2€ insisted on giving me the receipt because legislator threw in some new expensive fines if they dont hand out receipts and prove their sales volume.
Not sure if that changed again over the years though...
I remember the news about this. It was really funny when it turned out that Greece had a slightly higher retirement age average than Germany. But tax paying is a huge cultural problem. Why pay taxes when you never get anything back from the government is a difficult spiral to turn.
Yes. In most tavernas in Greece they are now obsessive about giving receipts. Every time you order another round of food or drinks tavernas bring out a new receipt and put it on the table -- they're not asking to pay it right away, they just need it to be there in case an "inspector" comes by.
Another example: In Athens, it's very hot, so we routinely buy bottles of water as we walk around. It makes you look like a dumb tourist but the alternative is dehydration and heat stroke, and there's nowhere to refill reusable bottles.
One day we went into a bar and absentmindedly set a partially-drank bottle of water on the bar while we looked at the menu. The bartender freaked out and demanded we hide it immediately, because "we did not give you a receipt for that water so it cannot be visible". I swear there was fear in his eyes. It's the only time in several long visits to Greece where the staff were anything less that 100% amiable and welcoming. Definitely, at least in that part of Athens, there had been some serious crackdowns and fines.
Tax evasion is just normal business in Greece. Even the GP wants payment in cash.
Nobody pays taxes and the retirement age is 60, why is the country in debt?........
retirement age is 67
67 is the current maximum retirement age. His statement is rooted in the fact that the Greece pension system was way way too generous for decades which directly contributed to its debt crisis.
Edit: a word
I've heard this story about cities in California too, except instead of drones it was Google Maps. It's probably a pretty common thing.
There's no direct pool tax here but your tax is based on the assessed value of the house when you bought it, and if you make a major improvement (like adding a pool) it triggers an updated assessment.
In California, aerial surveys like that don't tell you anything because of Proposition 13. If someone has lived in their house a long time and have only done repairs, the assessed valuation is nearly frozen (minuscule increases are allowed each year). It's only if the house is sold that revaluation is triggered. So old Ed and Edna who bought in the early 1970s pay bupkis for property tax on a house with a market value of millions (that they paid $40k for).
And all the improvements they make, like adding a pool, don't trigger a reassessment on the original property, they only add an assessment at the new rates for the value of the new work.
And it's pretty hard to hide major work, since the assessors are monitoring building permits, and anyone who'd get a cowboy builder to put in a pool without a permit is an imbecile. Also, it'll get flagged when you try to sell, and you can get in tax trouble then, when it's even less convenient.
Porsche Cayennes. There was a time where the streets were flooded with them
Sure was a lot of flooding for a place with no pools 🤔
Like the peppah
Don’t know if it’s still the case but for many years in greece you would not be taxed fully on your home if it was under certain types of construction. The consequences was you’d see bucketlloads of houses with half finished second or thirds floors that were uncompleted simply to avoid taxation.
The greeks are master tax dodgers
Is there a running joke in Greece about how the ruins aren’t ruins, they’re just avoiding taxes? I hope there is.
This is a good one! Will definitely use it when I'm reluctantly accepting another ouzo shot from my Greek mates, cheers.
Something similar happens in Mexico too.
That's exactly how it was many years ago when I lived there. I was also told the reason so many used wardrobe cabinets instead of closets, was that closets were taxed.
I wonder if it was something to do with how many bedrooms the house had? Where I live a room has to have a closet and secondary egress point to be counted as a bedroom.
Then that's an administrative failure. Cash can be difficult to address, but property assessment for the sake of taxation is a job in many parts of the world.
Yup, hard to hide your big ass house from the taxing authorities. It’s a great way to tax the rich.
My mom has a house in Athens and it needed some work. The guy gave her a cash price and another price with the cash price being much better.
Was interested, so I googled this. They are such an outlier in the EU with their cash habits:
Because in 2012 mt here were harsh restrictions on how much people could get out from their bank accounts. Why to keep money in the bank of the government can restrict your access to the money ?
Yea, they allowed a “living” withdrawal amount but there were people who needed more for surgeries, long planned trips or other things that are not government business.
That’s news to me. When I was in Athens I could pay for everything with card. Whether I was in a tourist area or not. Even those kiosk stands accepted card.
Yes tourists and non-Greeks probably do. But the Greeks overwhelmingly operate in cash 🤷♂️ cultural thing it seems
Yes, and it makes it easier for them too since there's usually just enough in digital transactions to pretend like that is all of their income and avoid taxation on the rest.
If it's anything like Argentina, stores offer discounts for cash sales (around 15%).
Surprisingly when I visited Athens (and Santorini), I didn’t need cash at all. Everything could be paid by card which is exceptional in societies that tend to operate on dark money/tax evasion.
That's the income they delcare to look legit. The other funds are from Greeks who pay cash
I remember they made it so online poker players in Greece were taxed DAILY on the amount in their online accounts.
To account for this, they would just pre-register tournaments until the day ended and un-register after.
It’s been awhile since I’ve looked into it: have people actually started paying taxes in Greece?
No. It’s a cultural thing.
I'm choosing to adopt their culture.
How do I let my government know I've converted?
If you live in the USA, you can become a millionaire and not pay taxes too - it’s the culture
Or a contractor. Or own a local entertainment center and make everyone do cash only for everything.
As an ex IRS employee and as an accountant, this isn't true. It's pretty easy to find those trying to skim it the system.
You have to move to Greece, sadly.
I wish I could identify as Greek to my current W-2 employer.
the beatings will continue until morale improves...I mean debt ratio
With parts of Europe moving to a 4 day week this seems like a terrible idea.
Yeah talk about asking for an exodus of workers
S/ Well fortunately that will solve the Jobless problem ...
God, Greece is going to ruin itself with this.
Greece has been there a while. they'll just bumble along somehow.
Eh it’s also a long term problem. Because they are in the EU their people can go to other countries where pay is higher. As things got worse in the past, and now, the best and brightest of the young left (almost like East Germany to West post 1991).
Highly skilled workers become harder to find because why work in Greece when you can work in Germany or France for more than twice the wage? In the same currency even?
It’ll be curious what the long term effects are. Obviously I want Ukraine to win but I do wonder if we’ll see the same thing post war with Ukraine should they join the EU, with many people bailing the reconstruction and debt it’ll have accumulated and moving to richer countries.
I feel like a post war Ukraine should have enough potential and resources to avoid that fate. Assuming everything goes well though.
It should but it’s worth remembering even before the war it has the lowest GDP per Capita in Europe. It’s a very poor country in large part due to being by Russia for so long. Even their exports would be purchased for cheap.
There’s a reason there are so many ads for “Ukrainian Brides” and “Ukrainian Men”, and that they were there prewar- most people realized that even compared to the other former Warsaw Pact countries they were doing poorly (in no small part due to having a Russian Puppet government for a long time, until Euromaiden).
I’m cheering for Ukraine but scared for their long term prosperity. Even East Germany received over a trillion in stimulus and people still left it behind. To this day you can get tons of cheap houses there as large parts basically depopulated.
The "Ukrainian brides" thing is outdated from the 90s and the fall of the Soviet Union. That said, it wasn't just Ukrainians leaving the defunct USSR. It's just, from the beginning, Ukraine has been more tech savvy and they were some of the first to get websites dedicated to mail-order brides and/or long-distance dating. There were plenty of Russians, Kazakhs, and others on those sites, too. It was just Ukrainians writing the code.
Plus, once the West collectively realized that Ukrainian women were attractive, it became a marketing thing. Ukrainian women became a brand, and whoever could fall under it during the post-USSR era gladly did, regardless of their actual country of origin.
Having lived in Ukraine, and having married a Ukrainian woman, my experience in the modern age has been very different. The ones who wanted to leave mostly already left. Most Ukrainians I've met did not want to leave; those who have left since the war broke out left for their safety, and for lack of economic opportunities in a nation that has struggled a lot with pragmatic corporations no longer wishing to invest in the country for fear of Russian destruction.
While Ukraine might have had the lowest GDP in Europe, it also had the lowest cost of living. I worked in their IT sector and I was making $2,000 per month. That's nothing in Europe, but my actual living expenses were 15% of my income and I was putting back nearly $1k per month while living like a king.
I treated myself to top-class private healthcare, got a back surgery I'd desperately needed done for a while but couldn't afford in the USA. All of the luxuries that would have been exorbitantly expensive in much of the West were quite accessible on my budget, like fancy caviar, good wines, cheeses, and basically anything else I desired. Hell, even the whiskey made in my home state was half the price in Ukraine than if I had bought it at the liquor store in the poorest part of my home city. Combine all of that with delicious local produce, and Ukraine really was a fantastic place to live before the war.
The thing is, economics are complicated. GDP is not a quality of life indicator: it's a global power projection indicator, but little else. You develop a good skillset and land a good job in a place like Ukraine, and you can live it up way more than if you just stuck it out in a first-world country.
Even as I sit here right now, in the safety of Germany, and I'm building more savings than I've had in a while, I literally just can't wait to go back to Ukraine where this money is going to have 3-4x the purchasing power than it does here. I'm just living frugally, working, and biding my time for when it's safe and I can go back.
They’re just going to commit fraud like they do with their taxes, it’s the Greek way.
It's backwards. Humans are more productive than they ever have been in history. There is a single group that wants this and it is greed.
This is done to combat an eternally unsolved situation. People are working extra days in the Food and Tourism industry while getting paid in cash and never reporting their earnings as to not get taxed for this. This just covers for this uniquely Greek eternal problem. This tries to solve the "black money" problem most middle enterprises have.
The article says tourism and food services are exempt?
Yes, but it sounds right if you don't read the article /s
How does this try to solve that problem? Why would people start declaring income and get taxed for it based on this?
It gets more tax income because everyone is "working" more hours. It's about making those who do declare income to report more working hours, therefore more wages, therefore more tax.
Right so it's just an attempt to increase taxable income and it doesn't directly address the issue of people not declaring their income.
What parts are those? Here in the Netherlands it's been discussed but widely seen as unfeasible to implement to cut down workweek to 4 days.
Same in Hungary.
Telekom did a pilot for months with different teams from customer service to DevOps, they scrapped it after saying for weeks how awesome it is.
I hope this fails miserably for them.
It's not about failing. I would be more interested in data that can be compared to 4 and 5 day weeks.
But it is obviously a huge loss to workers rights.
Yeah imagine your day off you already are thinking of tomorrow stuff
And the fact that on your day off you won't want to do anything you'll just be exhausted on top of that it'll be the day you probably will have to do chores and shopping. What a terrible idea this is. It's hard enough for me to get by on the two days I get off a week.
As someone who has worked this type of schedule seasonally, I can confirm that it draws you very thin. 2 days is barely time to organize your personal life.
Yea I've been working at this retail job closing for only 5 months and work 5 days straight a week and it's gotten really draining. My days off are Monday and Tuesday, I'm not even off on convenient days to actually hang out with friends and do things even if I had the energy to.
I used to be in retail with that same exact schedule. Then one year I took off for all of Labor Day weekend (Friday through Monday) and realized how amazing it is to hang out with friends during the day on the weekend. It gave me a kick in the ass and 3 months later I became a plumbing apprentice. Now I get home at 4pm at the latest Monday-Friday, there is absolutely no take-home work or stress whatsoever, and I get Saturdays and Sundays. I HIGHLY recommend trying to get out of retail; in 1.5 years, I have never once dreaded going to work or felt like quitting, whereas my entire 3 years in retail I was constantly stressed.
Yea this job was more out of needing money to survive in the moment it's definitely not something I plan on staying with. Being an introvert doesn't help, so being around ppl all day adds even more of a drain to things. I'm an artist but it's not exactly consistent or high paying, and learning a new skill that would be more plausible for a consistent job in art also takes time and energy which I have neither of 😅 But I am definitely about to start looking for new things soon in different fields because retail is not the way.
Long time retail guy here, I feel this. I bumped my max hours down to 32 because I’m so burnt out. Luckily my pay is great for this kind of role and I still get benefits, but man I would quit this place in a second if I could afford too. The work is just never done, there’s zero sense of accomplishment from it these days.
Ah, the 1 day weekend.
Are you stressed from yesterday's bullshit or dreading tomorrow's? Who can say?
Because thieves get rich, saints get shot, and god don't answer prayers a lot - here, in the land of the 1 day weekend.
This is terrible. Sunday barely feels like a day off because I'm constnatly thinking about Monday already... I hope this backfires spectacularly.
If Germany were to introduce this, I would go part time immediately.
The worst thing is, Sundays are normally a family day in Greece. So you won't get a day off.
Mexico has a 6 days, 48 hours work week and we're fighting tooth and nail to get it to 40, I thought the conversation worldwide was that less time ends up being more productive, not the other way around
Experts say less time spent at work brings better productivity. And I believe people that know more than me about things.
But when you give power to centre-right neo-liberals, who do everything to please corporate donors and interest groups, you get a steady erosion of peoples and workers righrs.
Depends, it's not the 6-day work week that'll cause problems it's the increase of work-hours per week from 40 to 48.
I currently work 10-hour shifts. I've worked both 5 days and 6 days, and 6 days is the absolute worst. I'd much rather work 5 of those than 6 eight hour shifts. 48 hours off, and I can recover and feel like I've spent time with family. 1 day? I'm going to be the angriest employee they've ever seen.
Everything comes down to production. You must ensure to do your job as safely as possible is all. Six days a week is fucked. We should all be working towards four day work weeks.
I normally work 4 days a week, currently less because of the market for luxury products, and 4 10 hour days is fine for 3/4 of the year. In the summer, it's brutal, though, as we work through the heat of the day. There is nothing like 7-8 hours of your shift being 90+ degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity. I'd take a shorter work week in a heart beat in the summer.
4 days 32 hours NO reduction in pay.
I'd take that deal all day long.start at the same time be done by 1:30 in the afternoon. Be like having a day off. I got time to get stuff done.
That is a good amount of time to be productive and impactful at your job while also having the time to do and see what you want. Working sucks, but society needs people to do jobs so why are we making it miserable for those who have to do it?
Spite. There is a large section of people that think if they don't personally benefit from something, it shouldn't be a thing. Goes for work. They didn't get fewer hours for the same pay, so why should you. They're just anti-progress. I work with a lot of them.
I imagine thats how its going to work out. The first few weeks might they might see an increase in productivity, then the burnout will set in.
It's both. I'd much rather work a 5 day 48 hour work week than a 6 day day 48 hour work week. Only 1 day fully to yourself blows I've done it, absolutely ruins the week for your personal life.
This right here.
That one day becomes your everything day, and that's setting people up for failure/an emotional and chore deficit carrying forward. One day off means that's the day you have to relax, socialize, catch up on chores and errands, and it can't be all those things, so something suffers. If you prioritize recharging and relaxing, your chores and socialization may suffer, if you prioritize chores and errands, you don't get to properly relax or socialize, etc. What doesn't get done, carries forward. In the case of chores and errands, in a literal sense, in the case of more intangible personal stuff, you carry it emotionally (didn't get to relax, no you start the week as a zombie. Didn't get to socialize, you feel like all you do is work, or get down on yourself for not making time for others, even if that time didn't exist).
As much as capitalism wants us to be perfect cogs in the machine, we're not. People are less effective workers when they don't have that time to attend to their personal needs, their life, to relax. I'm sure most of us have been in shitty, 6 days a week jobs that pay like shit, where it just feels like all you do is wake up and go to work (that you hate). It sucks. Making it the default is idiotic
As a guy who's currently working a 6 day working week, the moment i had a week off i spent it absolutely getting shit faced with all the alcohol, weed i could find. I felt like a pressure cooker about to explode. My psyche is fucked rn
As someone who did the exact same thing for years, take care of yourself. That mindset is hard to get out of once you establish it.
Hopefully we wont ever have to weigh up these options. We should be striving for 32h 4 days or 5 day workweeks, not 48h 5 days or 6 day workweeks.
Oh you know it's coming soon on their agenda. "These lazy employees don't know how to do real work." "Job creators deserve more." "It isn't fair." I'll add that they'll then also want tax cuts for the wealthiest but tax increases on workers.
It's not even a full day in reality because you have to get up for work the next day
Or how about not more than 40 and fuvk the boss?
It will make scheduling time off a pain in the ass because you will have to burn through your PTO with the loss of a two day weekend.
Suicide rate’s gonna rise fast
You saying that makes me wonder if you have ever lived in a European country where everything is closed on Sundays. 6 days a week is definitely an issue.
It will just take decades of deeply unhealthy workers and corporations sucking up insane profits when people can't afford anything but cheap Chinese crap off the tik tok shop.
I mean it's Greece of course it will.
Thing is though prepare for the astroturfing claiming it's working.
Yeah Greeks never been around thousands of years they aren’t going to work on Saturday
I've spoken to Greeks who said that this is basically already the normal for them. They just made it legal now.
What would be the best result though? West Turkey, or South Macedonia?
Absolutely abysmal decision from Greece AND aloing employers to mandate up to 2 hours A DAY of unpaid off the clock work from workers. what are they thinking. I thought Greece still had high unemployment?
That kinda sounds like slavery with extra steps.
With the world moving back towards corporate oligarchy, that's by design.
Unemployment AND workers shortage...
Seriously, if you are Greek, impacted by these measures, and have a desirable skill-set, the government is really banking on National pride and family connections to prevent you from bailing to some other EU nation for work.
People in the tourism service industry were already doing 6 day work weeks, but they kept it on the down low and people were payed under the table as a result. All this law does is make it legal for them so people won’t have to hid their income and the Greek government can collect more taxes. If you had a regular Mon-Fri office job, nothing changes for you
All this law does is make it legal for them so people won’t have to hid their income and the Greek government can collect more taxes
The article says that people in the food service and tourism industry are not included in this.
So, what you are saying is that they are not making people work six days, they are enabling them to work six days as it was illegal prior to this? Wild.
Don't forget that much of the tourism work is seasonal.
It would be interesting to see whether the law does take that into account.
Per the article "Food service and tourism workers are not included in the six day work week initiative."
What if your regular Mon-Fri office job changes to 6 day work? Since it is legal now surely big corporates won't do that, right?
Good news: it’s Greece so it will.
It's a misleading title. They didn't have overtime pay for working more hours than 40 in a week. This change creates an overtime pay. The tourist industry is massive there. This is going to be great for those in the service industry.
I’ve been working six days a week for quite a while now and I’ll tell you, it’s horrible
Jezzus. My boss just set my schedule to four days a few months ago (without a pay cut) and I can't even imagine going back to five.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine lives in near poverty and gets two days off a month. T_T
As far as I know unemployment is a huge thing i Greece. Making the ones that have jobs work for 6/7 days will create less jobs, worsening the unemployment problem. Or am I wrong?
Edit: I was wrong. The law only states that some industries may offer their workers the option to work an extra day legally instead of them working unpaid/untaxed overtime.
It’s about magically fixing the economy and getting the country out of debt. The IMF love this kinda draconian shit.
It’s v. risky in Europe, where skilled workers can leave for another EU country very easily. There are going to be a lot more Greek doctors and nurses outside the country very soon.
Yeah if I had to assess the idea I would rank it as stupid. As Europeans we can easily move into any other EU country and the tendency is to go 4 days not 6. Besides that, I don't get how this would fix anything, you are deliberalety closing jobs postings by stretching working hours. I guess the idea is to have your business opened longer so you get more taxe while not having to hire someone new. In my opinion this does not go into the right direction, like, at all.
You didn’t actually look at the law. You are wrong. It doesn’t allow companies to make anyone work more hours. It gives employees the option to accept an extra shift (at a higher rate of pay) in industries that are struggling to find workers.
Ah. That makes more sense. What industries is it?
Quote from the article:
“Under the new legislation, which was passed as part of a broader set of labor laws last year, employees of private businesses that provide round-the-clock services will reportedly have the option of working an additional two hours per day or an extra eight-hour shift.“
It will mostly affect manufacturing jobs in places where finding workers is difficult. It’s already common to have workers do the extra work under the table. This brings this work into the legal realm, gives the workers a pay raise for these extra hours, and lets the government tax it. It doesn’t apply to restaurants or the tourist industry.
Was this not an option previously? I've had loads of jobs in the UK where I've been offered more hours than my contract at a higher rate. It's just called overtime, surely?
Ah, the naive belief in a direct correlation between working time and productivity...
It's more about pulling in more income tax from workers than productivity.
Must not be any rich people in Greece to tax.
I think tax dodging is a national pastime
Tax evasion is one of the sacraments of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Other developed countries: maybe we should consider 4-day work weeks
Greece:
This kind of thing would get me to abandon a whole country, to be honest.
Other countries people actually pay their taxes negating this need.
I’ve been on a 6 day workweek schedule for the past year. It’s unreal how important it is to have two days off in a row. I currently spent most of my only day off to do chores, clean, etc and then try to squeeze in something social with the rest so I don’t go crazy. In the end - there’s barely any sleeping in and practically no time to just relax. Terrible terrible schedule
/s
Why stop at 6? Just because God rested on the seventh day doesn’t mean you have to.
I mean yeah.. get them working young .. no reason why a 10 year old can't be working .. and they can work till they die so no old people doing nothing to worry about , include a seven day work week and your economy will be back on track in no time.
Why stop at 7? Just put people underground, artificially shorten days to 21 hours, introduce an 8th work day in the week.
Sounds like Greece needs more unions
Greece just needs less corruption.
“Arrangements have been made…” is what I heard all over from our tour guide. Dude was getting kickbacks every place he took us, he knew them all it was insane.
Yea, that is your tour guide. "Kick Back Joe"
As a native of tourista Florida: " I've seen this movie too many times. "
Same thing happened in Israel when we went (took my father literally two months before the current… stuff… as he’d always wanted to go but is getting to the age where it was either now or never).
Each place wanted 20-30$ for food when it was worth maybe 5$ but they controlled the tour bus so…
Going to the West Bank was fun. They did the same exact thing there. But at least we got to see alot of ancient cities. Went to the Kingdom of Jordan… and they did the same exact thing there too.
Then my dad had a stroke there. Most surreal experience of my life being an American and having an Israeli (I think), a Jordanian, a Belgian (asked where he was from as we got in the ambulance) and like ten other people all trying to help him while he was lying on the ground. One said something like “Allah is kind, if he fell over there he would have hit rocks!” And another was talking about God and…
Fuck I’m getting off topic. My point is the tour guides were all corrupt. But the people? Nicest people I’ve ever met. People from many different religions, races, ideologies saw someone in need and all tried to help while in Roman ruins near Amman.
I trust he's ok now?
Yes thank you for asking! Healthy as a bull. Jordanian medical facilities were very good outside of not being able to drink the water!
Yes thank you for asking! Healthy as a bull
That's good to hear!
The word just is doing some heavy lifting here
Everyone just needs to pay their taxes.
The Greeks just need to pay their fucking taxes - tax avoidance is a national pastime in Greece
Greece showing the world how NOT to do it.
You're going in the wrong direction dumbasses!
Not sure why, but for the longest time I thought things are developing into a better future, less wars, more affordable housing etc but that seems to be wishfull thinking. Pretty depressing :/
You’d think with the rise of automation we’d actually free up people’s time to enjoy life.
Nah now the creative jobs like art and writing are being replaced by robots so we get to toil with manual labor and customer service.
"The pro-business government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said the measure is both “worker-friendly” and “deeply growth-orientated.” "
Worker friendly?
Damn, most places are talking about try to go to a 4 day week.
A 6-day work-week makes parenting nearly impossible, so expect birth-rates to start dropping.
It's already 1.2 per women, so they're gonna exacerbate and already existing problem.
"Worker friendly" my ass. This is another political move to exploit labor and put more money into the pockets of the wealthy. Europe is moving further right as Murika has been doing since Reagan. The days of working forty hours, two cars, nice home, nice vacation once a year are going the way of the Dodo bird.
For working class with younger kids, that's most often already been the case for years.
This is just a misread of the situation. It’s a US-centric take, for one, and ignores Greece’s litany of well documented issues with debt and taxation.
The scheme itself is profoundly stupid but the reason they’re doing it isn’t.
"The days of working forty hours, two cars, nice home, nice vacation once a year" that never was a thing for the majority of people. If you had that, you were in the minority growing up.
The idea was that MORE people should have that as a floor/basic standard of living and that we are certainly losing.
saw this joke on twitter referencing this:
"Stavros, you have to work six days now instead of five"
"But Nikos I don't even have a job"
"Ah well neither do I"
I thought the EU was supposed to be going the other direction, with 4 day weeks ...
Uh tf. This is opposite of what the world wanted lol
Until Greece can fix their tax evasion problem nothing is going to work. You simply can't run a country where only half the population pays for the services everyone uses.
Or the wealthy evade paying their fair share.
Up next: 8 day work week.
This is simply wrong… Germany always had a 6 day work week per law, most companies don’t use it but the legal maximum for a full time job is 48h/week with 8h/day
I was going to say this. When I was a kid in the 90s, we still went to school 6 days a week and a lot of people worked 6 days a week (although by then Saturdays was a half-day). That's also why Germans are borderline militant about having a peaceful Sunday with everything closed.
But if you're working or at school for 6 days, and everything is closed on day 7, then when do you get shit done? When can you run the errands?
This from another article...
It only applies to businesses which operate on a 24-hour basis and is optional for workers, who get paid an extra 40% for the overtime they do.
Seems like this is for businesses that are already working all hours. Isn't this just guaranteeing overtime pay for workers that choose to work the extra day?
That’s the reality of the change but people stay on a title that’s misleading
It's never enough for the capitalists.
They'll work you til you're dead and then replace you with the next person they'll grind down to dust.
I'm very happy with my four day week
Wish we could join you
I wish everyone who okayd this the worst
I give them a month, before literally businesses lose customers because everyone is working 6 days a week, this will be 10x more damaging then working from home because half of market is now working a day they had off before.
Not really true. Germany still has a six-day/48-hour-working week at least by labor law. It's only that major unions in the past have successfully negotiated the five-day working week and it became the commonly accepted standard. But it's not illegal here to hire someone for a 6-day-work-week - if you could find someone dumb enough today.
“Food service and tourism workers are not included in the six-day working week initiative.”
The pro-business government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said the measure is both “worker-friendly” and “deeply growth-orientated.”
Go. Fuck. Yourself. Kyriakos.
No no wrong way mate, we’re trying to get Fridays OFF not Saturdays ON
“You’re going the wrong way!”
And in Portugal we are trying to passing a law about 4 days of work. Lmao, I don’t know where we are heading
I hope permanent general strike is the response.
Nobody show this to our American government
This is depressing af
In the US we just call this a part-time job.
The 7th day is just for working the main job
I introduced a 6-day work week to myself years ago. It’s awful and soul-sucking.
I remember working about 3-4months in Belgium for 6 days/week(it was a "special" scenario), I was also living in a hotel (nothing to do around the house) no family to take care of, just work.
After about 3-4weeks I felt like shit, very tired and couldn't for the life of me get enough rest on my free day. I don't even want to imagine having kids, house related chores and enjoying life (going to a concert, event etc.) when I work six-day per week.
The more time you spend working the less time you have to protest government actions.
I’d be moving the fuck outta Greece that’s for damn sure
This baffles me, why is a country trying a work week and not the free market? Let people decide when they want their doors open and employees when they want to work. I have tried 6 days, 4 days, 10 hours, 6 hours, we have found 6 hours, 5 days a week, produces the same amount of money as 10 hours 6 days, except employees are visually happier.
Awesome job Greek government. I'm sure their next step is to start complaining about even further decreasing birthrates and a consequently even more increasing debt
Greece is funny, you go Greece.
30% of the workers in Greece are off the grid so they don't pay taxes...
Is it me, or does it feel like the whole world is going backwards?
Going to be interesting how this affects birth rates.
That's going the wrong way
Wrong direction, let's get to 4.
Slavery is the goal.
Slavery is always the goal.
You can fuck right the hell off with a six day work week.
In a ranking of debt to GDP per country, Greece is currently ranked third.
To solve this problem, we'll just force everyone to work more and tax them for it.