Aspects of European Socio-economic Integration: Labour Conditions in Greece

Abstract

The current crisis in Greece, a European Union member for over 30 years, has brought to the surface the character of the Greek politico-administrative system as it handles employment, migration and associated forms of social protection. The employment relationship seems to be embedded within a bifurcated system of labour whereby the employment relationship is secure only in the public sector while the private sector is controlled by a precarious system of labour security, a separate health system and with its own political organisation. The lack of a unified national labour system does not allow the formation of a national system of employment (qualifications) and, hence, a way to overcome nepotism and the political (party) patronage system which defines, in a determining way, labour relations. This division is maintained by the politico-administrative labour regime put in place, under the extra-ordinary political situation that emerged after World War II. The paper explores this hidden reality defining the organisation of the employment system in Greece, its politico-administrative controls that seem to aim at ‘arresting’ the emergence of a social economy. This leads to a hidden social economy of a fragmented private labour market, which is regulated separately from the secure “public” employment sector. This rather anachronistic and discriminatory system of political order of labour divides workers in Greece.