Employees in the Greek private sector will have to work overtime without extra payment if they have to self-isolate due to the coronavirus. The overtime work is up to three hours per day once they return to their workplace to make up for the lost tine. This provision that labor rights is included in a draft law the government will submit to the Parliament.
According to a report by daily kathimerini, employees who quarantine for 7 or 14 days, as required by the National Public Health Organization (EODY), in order to protect themselves and their colleagues from possible exposure to the coronavirus, will receive their salary normally and their employer will also cover their social insurance contributions.
However, at the end of the forced absence from work, the employee will have to make up for the loss in working days and hours of quarantine, if the solution of teleworking is not possible, by working up to three hours per day in addition to their daily schedule.
The extra work will not be remunerated as overtime, but the relevant labor law protection provisions for working time limits must be observed.
According to the Labor Ministry, the new rule is part of the package of emergency measures for the labor market, which has suffered from the impact of coronavirus, and mainly concerns workers who do not get sick themselves but must be quarantined as part of preventive control regulations to limit the spread of the disease, in line with official instructions and recommendations by EODY.
Another provision of the draft law concerns leave for working parents who contract the virus. The cost of the leave will be co-financed by the employer and the state. A medical certificate will be required, which will determine how long this leave should last, notes kathimerini.
PS I wouldn’t know that workers have to work overtime when they return to workplace after a sick leave. No idea, which genius mind in the labor Ministry came up with this idea.
Worth noting that civil servants who worked in rotation during the lockdown received their full salary even if they worked 2 weeks in a month. But they are paid from the public bottomless pit of taxpayers’ money…
