The industrial relations are expected to be at the top of the political agenda in the coming period. SYRIZA, against the background of both the celebration of the Labour Day, as well as the strike on 6 May, against the bill on industrial relations, proposed by the minister responsible, Kostis Hatzidakis. The stance of SYRIZA is expected to be set by the party president himself, Alexis Tsipras, during a speech to trade union officials. The speech will take place online, on Good Tuesday, at 17:00, and is expected to be attended by over 800 trade unionists, representatives of more than 100 organisations.
The main focus of Tsipras' speech is expected to be the «counter-reform», which constitutes the new bill that the government is expected to bring to Parliament shortly. Mr Tsipras will not be content to cauterise the bill but will commit to abolish it when SYRIZA comes to power. But the president of SYRIZA will return immediately after the Easter on labour issues, since in the next period there will be a presentation of SYRIZA's proposals along the lines of the party's position on the ESY and restart the economy.
The labour bill also constitutes a more general «organisational challenge» for the opposition party, as the president of SYRIZA has called for the activation of all the party organisations, in view of the «mother of battles», as he has called this bill. SYRIZA is going to participate, along with other parties of the left, in the strike and rally on May 6, giving the message of creating a united political front against the government's planning.
As noted in the decision of the Political Council of SYRIZA, «it is the moment to develop a broad social alliance in society, in the workplaces and in the movements. With our programmatic positions and actions, we highlight the prospect of an alternative, feasible and necessary path today, expressing a progressive social majority for political and social change».
The memorandum agenda is back in the spotlight from the Southwest
SYRIZA assesses this initiative of the government as the adoption of concepts that in the memorandum past had been proposed by the side of International Monetary Fund to the Greek governments. In fact, many of the measures promoted in the government bill were extreme views of domestic sections of the employers' sector that were taken to the lenders in order to be brought back as their own proposals. In Koumoundourou they point out that the Mitsotakis government is the only one, even from previous New Democracy governments, that accepted to embrace such views and attempted to use them to shape labour legislation.
One of the key issues of the bill is the changes in the determination of working time which - as the official opposition has pointed out - lead to unpaid overtime and the abolition of the 8-hour working day. In the opposite of the proposal that wants workers to work 10 hours a day, SYRIZA in the decision of the Political Council contrasts the «reduction of the working week from 40 hours to 35 hours without a reduction in wages, following a sectoral impact assessment and consultation of the social partners and compensatory measures to reduce labour costs».
N. Iliopoulos: wage reduction measures
The issue of working time was discussed in detail by the party's spokesman Nassos Iliopoulos. He noted in a radio interview with the radio station «Sto Kokkino» that «this bill abolishes the 8-hour week, brings unpaid overtime - which means a pay cut- when it allows, for example, a worker to work 10 hours a day for 6 months and not be paid a single hour of overtime.» He recalled that «one of the first things the New Democrats did when they came into government was to reduce the fines of the labour inspectorate».
N.Iliopoulos also spoke about the issue of fines for violations of labor legislation, noting that the government has already made changes in favour of the employer side. As he said «in May 2017, a large systemic bank paid a fine of €1.6 million for unpaid overtime to employees. Under the current framework established by the government, the same fine would be only 109,000 euros.» They added that «we have a government which not only abolishes the 8-hour working day and introduces unpaid overtime, but at the same time it also dismantles any framework for controlling employer arbitrariness. It supports employer malfeasance and legitimises unpaid work.».
Also - noted Nassos Iliopoulos - this political choice essentially recommends a pay cut. He pointed out that «in 2012 when this policy was implemented, the minimum wage was reduced by 23% overnight, the minimum wage for young people under 25 was introduced minus 32% and collective agreements were abolished, arguing that this will curb unemployment and bring about economic recovery. But the year these interventions were made, we had the worst recession and the worst unemployment in the crisis period.
