These rules, according to their dogmatic documentation, aim to help companies adapt to the new conditions of competition and at the same time ensure a high rate of employment. They are in fact part of the so-called “law of flexibility”, introducing substantial variations from traditional labor law restrictions.
According to the rule, the framework for legal working hours does not allow to offset the additional working hours of a week, a month, or a year by working less hours in another week, month, or year respectively. However, the enactment of article 41 of Law 1892/1990 presented for the first time in our country the possibility of implementing a system of “adjustment” (fluctuation) of daily and weekly working hours. This was then followed by the regulations of article 3 L.2639/1998, 5 of L.2874/2000, 2 of L.3385/2005, 7 of L.3846/2010, 42 of L.3986/2011 and finally, the recent regulation of article 55 par. 2 of L.4808/2021.
The current legal framework sets three (3) forms – possibilities of arranging the working time of a company’s staff. More specifically, the possible working arrangements are based on the following: a) a semi-annual basis (article 41 par. 1α L.1892/1990), b) an annual basis (article 41 par. 2α L.3986/2011) and c) a weekly basis (article 55 par. 2 L.4808/2021).
According to the first of the above-mentioned systems (semi-annual arrangement), the scheme (increased employment) provides the employee with the possibility of working for a period of time beyond his conventional weekly hours and up to two (2) additional hours a day beyond the eight-hour scheme (in total up to 10 hours).
Then, for another period of time (“reduced employment”) employee’s working time should be reduced respectively by either less working hours in comparison to conventional hours or by granting to the employee more rest days or by combining reduced employment and rest days. In any case, the above time periods (“increased” and “reduced” employment) may not exceed six (6) months within the period of one (1) year.
It is important, though, to mention that the law gives the right of freely arranging the above mentioned periods; yet, the average number of weekly working hours within the six-month period should be kept within the regulations set by the same framework: 40 hours or less, if a conventional working hour scheme of less than 40 hours is implemented, with a maximum limit of 48 hours, including the hours of overtime that may take place during the period of reduced employment.
The second system (annual arrangement) gives the possibility of allocating up to 256 hours of the total working time of the employee within a calendar year and increasing by the same number of hours the daily and weekly working time for a certain period within the same calendar year, which must not exceed 32 weeks (period of “increased employment”). Respectively, for another period of the same calendar year, which may be equal to the rest of the year, the employee should work fewer hours than his conventional weekly schedule or receive more days off or a corresponding increase in his/her days of leave or a combination of the above mentioned.
It should be noted that in this system as well, the average number of hours of weekly employment should be kept within the framework provided by the same provision (see above), while, during the period of increased employment, the daily work of the employee should not exceed 10 hours.
The third and last system (weekly arrangement), which was established by the recent Law 4808/2021, enables the company to employ the employee for 10 hours a day on a four-day weekly basis, offsetting the two (2) extra hours during the four (4) days of the week, with one (1) day of rest, which the employer is obliged to grant on the fifth day of the week.
In conclusion, it is important to note that all three of the above working time settlement systems can be implemented either by a collective labor agreement or by special agreement between the employer and the employees’ representatives, or even by individual agreement, which can be drawn up at the request of the employee. This was enacted by article 42 par. 6 of L.1892/1990 and was later supplemented by article 59 par. 1 of L.4808/2021. This happened in order to limit any intention of circumvention of the latter regulation by setting the prohibition of termination of the employment contract on the grounds that the employee refused to submit a request for arrangement of his working time.