Calamos Supports Greece
GreekReporter.comGreek NewsEconomyGreek Labor Law Changes Deemed Unlawful

Greek Labor Law Changes Deemed Unlawful

Greeks have been protesting austerity measures for 2-1/2 years, but to no avail as more are coming

Greece’s pending $17.45 billion plan for spending cuts and tax hikes demanded by international lenders includes clauses that are unlawful because they violate workers’ rights, a committee of the Council of Europe has ruled in a non-binding judgment.
The committee lacks the power to enforce its findings but makes recommendations to the Council of Ministers of the 47-nation Council of Europe, which can then adopt a resolution calling on a member state to take corrective action.
That seems unlikely as EU leaders said they back the plan being pushed by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ uneasy coalition government as he said it is needed to unblock a delayed $38.8 billion loan installment from the Troika of the EU-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank.
The lenders are also holding up a second bailout, for $172 billion, until more austerity measures are passed, despite the furious objection of Greeks who have been protesting, striking and rioting to no avail.
In a decision it said could be used by trade unions to mount a legal challenge in Greece, the Council’s social rights committee ruled that two reforms undertaken at the behest of the Troika contravened the European Social Charter and should be scrapped.
The ruling, based on an appeal by Greek public sector unions, concerned two measures adopted in 2010 that extended the “trial period” during which workers can be dismissed without notice to one year and cut the minimum salary for workers under 25 years of age to two-thirds of the national minimum wage.
The committee said the longer trial period ran counter to a clause in the charter which said workers were entitled to “reasonable” notice before their employment was terminated and that the lower wage meant young Greek workers had fallen below the poverty line of 580 euros, or $757, a month.
“This ruling establishes the illegality of the measures concerned which can be invoked in the national jurisdictions,” Luis Jimena Quesada, the committee’s president, told a news conference ahead of the ruling’s publication. Budgetary readjustments necessitated by the global economic crisis should not lead to an erosion of workers’ rights enshrined in the European Social Charter, it said.
The Council of Europe, founded in 1949, is an international organization which promotes co-operation between European countries on legal standards, human rights, democratic development and the rule of law. It is entirely separate from the European Union. Its European Committee of Social Rights – composed of 15 independent experts selected for a six-year term – is tasked with ensuring that countries conform to the provisions of the European Social Charter.
 
 
 

See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!



Related Posts