In September 2014, the Greek General Confederation of Labour (GSEE) registered a complaint with the Council of Europe alleging that austerity measures imposed on Greece by the ‘Troika’ (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF)1 violate the European Social Charter2. In early February, ICTUR spoke with Prof. Wolfgang Däubler, who was appointed last year to an Expert Group to review Greece’s labour reforms. In an unusual move (shortly after this interview), the IMF announced that its Board was split, with the Directors expressing differing views on fiscal consolidation and the country’s debt burden.3 Notably however, the Directors agreed on ‘the need to preserve and not reverse existing labour market reforms and complement them with additional efforts to bring Greece’s collective-dismissal and industrial-action frameworks in line with best practices’. As Professor Däubler recounts, these very reforms have all but demolished the system of collective bargaining existing in Greece before the crisis. It remains highly questionable whether – as the IMF proposes – the existing system can be brought into line with ‘best practices’, so long as the reforms imposed on Greece are to be preserved. Ciaran Cross (CC): Professor Däubler, could you first explain a little about the situation faced by the Greek economy after the 2008 financial crisis? Wolfgang Däubler (WD): The financial crisis made the problems already existing in Greece even more urgent. And due to the competition between the different countries in the Eurozone, Greece had limited options. In the time when Greece had its own currency - the Drachma - there was a possibility of devaluation, one could devaluate the currency if the country was unable to face the competition. But this possibility no longer exists if you are a member of the Eurozone. And therefore Greece had to look for another form of devaluation of internal devaluation. That means they were economically forced to reduce wage costs. This was done in a very brutal way. Of course, Greece did not choose this of its own will, but under the influence of the so-called Troika. And the means taken to reduce labour costs were implemented in 2010 and found a provisional end in 2012. In this time, they demolished the whole system of collective bargaining and reduced the minimum wage. The result is that today wages are at 75 percent of the level before 2010, and unemployment is around 2425 percent. Among young people under the age of 25, unemployment is 50 percent. That’s a catastrophe. CC: What was the effect on Greece’s collective bargaining structures specifically? WD: In Greece there are a very few large enterprises, but a very high number of small enterprises. Before 2010, about 90 percent of all workers or employees were protected by collective agreements. These agreements were in all sectors, and were relatively good collective agreements. The legal basis for such high coverage was that collective agreements were declared to be generally binding. This was necessary because not every small enterprise with three employees is a member of the employers’ association. But it was possible to take a collective agreement in one sector - hotels for instance - and extend it to the whole sector. And therefore the system depended on the ability of the government to extend the collective agreements to all employers and employees. That was the traditional system: all these collective agreements were extended to the whole sector, and therefore coverage was around 90 percent. In 2012, this system of extending collective agreements was suspended by the Troika. The Troika decided and the Greeks had to follow. As a result, there is no longer any effect erga omnes, as the lawyers say, meaning that now collective agreements only bind the members of the employers’ associations and the members of the trade unions. And under these conditions, all of the employers who are not members of the employers’ association have the opportunity to impose worse working conditions on workers, to pay lower wages, and that’s a big problem. This was the first step the Troika took and it was very similar to what has happened in Portugal. Secondly, in a lot of sectors, there were still collective...