I have written many times about the labor relations and the wages in private sector under the sign of the Troika. And every time I put a tittle like Dark middle Ages, Winter or things like that. Today as details from the new austerity package are leaked to the press, my inspiration suffers a short circuit. How can I describe the new working conditions that enslave young people, full of life and power, often with a university degree to go to work for 600 euro/gross and thus 10 hours per day?
Labour and Social Security Minister Louka Katseli agrred with the IMF, the EU and ECD representatives that the salary for employees entering the job market for the first time may receive up to 20% lower than the National Collective Bargain. <May> is a scorn in today’s economic crisis and working conditions as employers do already crack down the prices and you will hardly find someone between 18-25 earning more than 600 euro/month, gross.
In the average, the real life practice is that young employees get a wage of 400 euro, without insurance and social security.
Will things get worst? I am afraid they will. In times of galloping unemployment the competition for a single working place is constantly growing. Did 25 people applied for a working place before the crisis and austerity, the rate grew 1:330+ in the first year of the Troika and now I hear of even 700 or 1,000 applications for a single job.
Furthermore Katseli and the Troika agreed that employees can work 10 hours per day without payment of overtime for a period of six months. This affects mostly the seasonal workers in tourism sector.
The last point of agreement is that temporary work contracts – currently for 2 years- will be extended to three years.
Last night when I was talking to a young woman, a merchandiser at a big super market chain. She is 27 and earns 600 euro gross per month. Each and every day she joints the protesters at Syntagma Square, in front fo the Parliament. Maria tells me she got a “lottery ticket” to have a job with social security. She wants a total change of the political and economic system. She dreams to live like in the Spanish village of Marinaleda, where people trade their goods and skills.
Can the failure of the modern economy, as we experience it now, inspire young people to total rejection of money?
We knew we had to devalue our currency to 30-40% but now is seems Greeks devalue their labor skills, their lives, their dignity.
Greece needs to get out of the EU and take their beating now, it will be far less painful than staying and losing their sovereignty, to the EU.
And then what? Going on like always? Allow me to quote Alexis Papachelas:
“Suddenly, for example, a wave of protest and superficial patriotism arose against the fact that the “foreigners” want to place their own technocrats in Greek tax offices, in the body that will be in charge of privatizations and in the state’s General Accounting Office. Are we really that proud? Are our tax offices and officials such paradigms of professionalism?” (…)”So, why don’t these peddlers of pseudo-patriotism just give up the rigmarole about sovereignty and focus instead on how to build a state and a country that doesn’t need to beg for loans every so often, that isn’t ashamed of what it has become and that can rank on an equal level with the rest of its European peers.”
No going on like before is not the answer. Free market is the only way to create jobs. Depending on gov. is like the old communist way. You get a job and go to work, you have no reason to excel at your postion, no reason to do your best. You will get paid no matter what. Free market is the only answer, and you don’t get free markets with the gov. controlling every aspect of your career.
“She dreams to live like in the Spanish village of Marinaleda, where people trade their goods and skills.”
Let her come and live here in the rural areas. Since this mess began a lot of trading of goods and skills is going on here in rural Greece. So, if she has something to offer she is most welcome.
About the rest: That’s all about trying to get more flexibility in working relations. Not only for the benefit of the employers but for the workers as well. Ever walked through Amsterdam? In every larger street you see several job agencies and a lot of people work that way. Ever heard about “a la carte agreements”? An awful lot of people are choosing their parts out of a collective bargaining agreements so that it’s tailor made for them.
And about that “modern slaves”-thing: Some figures for the Netherlands:
Minimum wage starts at 23 years. A 22 year old gets only 85% of that and a 15 y.o. gets just 30%. A 18 y.o. can work 12 hour shifts a day and up to 60 hours a week…
The gross minimum wage at 23 years old is € 1424,40 a month. For a 20 y.o it’s € 876,00. For a 18 y.o. it’s € 648,10 and for a 15 y.o. it’s € 427,30
Oh… and there is no 13th or 14th month because this is included in this gross wage.
I brought this example of Maria, because I think it’s a pity when the corrupt system deives esp. young people to extremes. I am also for felxible work conditions, the problem in Greece is that is not flexible at all. People get jobs only throught connections. Do you know a lot of people aged 40+ having a possibility to get a job? Have you checked the work places ads in recent year? what kind of jobs are offered?
In fact we are busy sort of ‘training’ some 40+ y.o. friends now to create their own work and/or businesses. Most striking thing is that as we see ‘possibilities’ and ‘opportunities’, they only see problems and are totally surprised at some of our suggestions.
And last year we were looking for people on a temporary (1 year) basis. Age was not important. Sadly, everybody who reacted or was approached by us rejected the offer because it was just for one year. A few did not have a job at that moment and others had HOPES for a renewed one year contract for a few hours as teacher or in other civil servant jobs. They all opted for that so they could keep their hopes alive of getting one day that wonderful ‘job-for-life’. They could by now had one year of experience that could bring them a job abroad or maybe start for themselves. So sad…
(And yes, your example of Maria was a good one)
I am fully aware of this Greek mentality as well and I wonder about it as much as you do. However we’re talking about age-groups that grew up in times when the state was self-promoting itself as the best employer. This corrupts and changes in a very negative way the mentality of labor manpower.
At the current situation self-employment seems to be the solution. But I don’t blame very much people having to pay the exorbitant TEVE prices and a taxation system that changes every six months.
By the way, I’ve been trying to get some consulting to start my own business since 1,5 year and every attempts failed lol. No thorough concepts available – the typical Greek way: go here, go there, go around, go missing… give up! But I don’t, I still have hope 🙂
I have the slight ‘suspicion’ that all is set up so that people get discouraged to stand on their own business feet.
Yes, ‘statism’ works both ways. And either way your screwed. The state has no interest at all in having people employing themselves. For it means loosing the tight control over them (a.i. coercing you to vote for them). And a lot of people, although not trusting the state, still think only the state can do things right… Here is 37 years of brainwashing for you.
Yes TEVE is a great example how rotten the system is. It is build in a way that you get punished when you are running your business more then a few years and it does not account at all for good and bad years. And in the mean time, most of that money has disappeared over the years.
Still, don’t give up. Make yourself free! And set up that business. (And when everything fails here, set it up in another EU-country. Not to evade taxes, just to get away from this statism) 😀
this is autism, not just statism. And yes, I still try to find ways to do it, but I don’t come forwards 🙁
Hey, when you need someone to bounce some ideas off that might take you a step further? Don’t hesitate and drop me a line. Might not help, but won’t hurt trying and we here in Greece need to work together to get us out of this mess.
thank you 🙂