Current Situation
Based on the current situation, there are the following two cases:
The system of six-day employment where the full contractual hours are 6 hours and forty minutes per day and 40 hours per week, while the legal hours are 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week,
The five-day employment system πενθήμερης απασχόλησης where the full contractual hours are 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week, while the legal hours are 9 hours per day and 45 hours per week.
At this point it is noted that the full contractual working hours of 40 hours and the possibility of dividing the working hours into five or six days of the week were also recorded and confirmed by the article 55 of Law 4808/2021..
With the implementation of the five-day work system for employees, two days of weekly rest are foreseen:
- • The day of basic weekly rest which is Sunday and
- • The day of additional weekly rest provided directly by the system in question.
With the five-day work system, the 6th working day was not abolished, but the working hours of the 6th day are transferred to the remaining five working days, with the result that the working hours of those days become longer than the legal one.
The 6th working day in the five-day work system is a mandatory rest day for the employee, but it does not have the character of a mandatory holiday, like the 7th day of the week. For this reason, the provisions on working on Sundays do not apply to employment on the 6th working day and the 75% increase provided to workers on Sundays and public holidays is not due in this case, nor is there a compensatory rest on another working day of next week.
he remuneration of the 6th working day was regulated by law for the first time with Article 8 of the Law 3846/2010 and since then, for his employment on the 6th day, the employee is paid the daily wage with a 30% increase. Hours of work on the sixth day of a five-day week (if it does not exceed 8 hours) are not included in the permitted, according to the applicable regulations, overtime limits.
Articles 25 and 26 of Law 5053/2023
Ο The Law 5053/2023 establishes the possibility, exceptionally, of employment on the sixth day of the week in two categories of companies that apply a five-day weekly work system for their employees.
The 1st category, according to article 25refers to exceptional employment on the sixth day in companies or holdings of continuous operation. Therefore, it includes companies that legally operate 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, with a rotating shift system, and employees are employed for five days and 40 hours a week. The employment is registered by the employer, in ERGANI II before the employee takes up service, in accordance with the procedure provided by no. 13169/28-12-23 Decision of the Minister of Labor and Social Security.
The 2nd category according to article 26 refers to exceptional employment on the sixth day in businesses or holdings, which are not of a continuous nature, but which can operate during the days Monday to Saturday, 24 hours, with a system of alternating shifts. Therefore, it includes businesses that legally operate 24 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week. And in this case, the workers are employed for five days and 40 hours a week. Similarly, the employment is registered by the employer, in ERGANI II before the employee takes up service. These companies have the possibility to employ workers on a sixth day according to the law, only in exceptional cases, in which they present an unforeseeable particularly increased workload in a specific period.
The employment on the sixth day for both categories of companies (continuous and non-continuous operation) is not allowed to exceed 8 hours. At the same time, overtime and overtime work by the employee is prohibited during this additional day.
The full implementation of the provisions of articles 25 and 26 of Law 5053/2023 for the additional sixth day of employment will begin on July 1, 2024, since according to the relevant Decision of the Minister of Labor, the corresponding digital statements will be ready in ERGANI II (Y.A. 46693/24595-28-3-2024), which is still expected.
Only private sector companies are included that have the characteristics of the law, i.e. 24-hour operation, continuous or non-continuous, with a five-day work system. The relevant legislative regulations do not concern companies that do not have the aforementioned characteristics. In any case, the five-day weekly work system that they may apply for their employees is not abolished.
