Greek Unions Want Paid Time Off When It’s Too Hot to Work
Greece’s latest heat wave in July highlighted the danger of 100°F-plus temperatures for workers toiling in the sun. Trade unions are proposing a sensible solution: mandatory, paid stoppages on outdoor work when temperatures reach dangerous levels.
A delivery man rides a motorbike past a screen displaying the high temperature in Thessaloniki, Greece, on July 23, 2023. (Sakis Mitrolidis / AFP via Getty Images)
In mid-July, Greece was engulfed by another stifling heat wave. The heat was magnified in Athens, as the concrete and marble of the capital’s streets and sidewalks held onto the beating of the sun. Indoor spaces offered no or little air conditioning, and even the evening air brought little respite. Temperatures hovered around 38°C (100°F) for over a week. It is the kind of unrelenting heat that can make you feel faint even when standing still. It is the kind of heat that blisters thoughts and belabors your ability to breathe. Greece’s civil protection agency warned that citizens must be “particularly careful,” and suggested that people “stay in cool and shady places away from overcrowding.”
But for many workers, these directives are impossible. Even during the hottest part of the day on the hottest day this year, delivery workers flitted around the city on motorbikes, and some construction workers continued laboring. A union of delivery workers, SBEOD, released a statement noting how “long waits in the sun, running engines, hot sheet metal, hot asphalt and exhaust fumes send the temperature soaring.” They called for the Ministry of Labor to institute binding emergency work stoppages. The Federation of Technical Works Workers (OSETEE, a construction workers’ union) similarly noted how, given the lack of proper legislation, the government must take “political responsibility for any illness, injury or death of workers who remain unprotected under inhumane working conditions.”
Perched on the Mediterranean, Greece is not new to hot summers. But the summers are getting hotter — and staying hotter for longer. Heat waves come more frequently, hold higher temperatures, and drag on for over a week at a time. For many Greek workers, continuing to labor in these conditions moves from difficult to dangerous. The Greek government has lagged on passing comprehensive and binding regulations and protections for workers to address the increased heat and climate change, in what unions in the country have called “blatant indifference.” Workers are calling for mandatory, paid stoppages on all outdoor work when temperatures climb to dangerous levels.
Temporary Measures
The idea isn’t unheard of. In fact, Greece’s Ministry of Labor released a circular on the first day of July’s heat wave, banning outdoor work between the hours of 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. from July 17–19, for as long as temperatures were equal to or higher than 40°C (104°C). However, they did not issue a ministerial decision, which unions said would be taken more seriously, and thus actually enforced. Many workers thus found themselves continuing to work through these prohibitions in one way or another.
On July 18, delivery workers who worked for the app efood in Athens were alerted that their services would be stopped, without pay during the hours of prohibition. Yet many workers found that when they opened the app, it continued accepting orders. Workers were then left with the dilemma of avoiding the heat and losing a day’s wage or taking the gamble of working in dangerous conditions. Many chose to work.
During Greece’s June heat wave, named “Kleon,” the same was true — schools were closed, the Acropolis shut its gates, and the Ministry of Labor nominally forbade all outdoor work from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. They ordered a full compensation of workers during the stoppage, and a fine of €2,000 per employee, for companies that did not apply the circular. Yet construction workers, who much like delivery workers often have to work informally or without proper contracts, stayed out on road and building projects across the country. The city of Patras Union of Builders and Related Trades released a statement decrying the “persistence” of construction contractors who forced workers to stay on the job.
In July 2023, during a similar heat wave and stoppage of work, Giorgos Patrinos, who was later revealed to be an undeclared delivery rider in the city of Chalkida, died of heat stroke while delivering food orders in the heat. According to the OSETEE union, at least fourteen Greek workers lost their lives in 2023 in occupational accidents or illnesses directly related to high temperatures.
Unions across the country have called for binding protective regulations, with strict implementation. The General Confederation of Greek Labor (GSEE), an umbrella union for private sector workers, has asked the Ministry of Labor for specific provisions for employers to regulate working conditions, “which should be accompanied by strict penalties and intensification of timely inspections by the Labor Inspectorate.”
They have recommended measures such as requiring workplaces to supply drinking water, mandatory breaks that account for the heat, and the reduction or full cessation of work in the hottest parts of the day, as well as mandatory work stoppages particularly during heat waves.
None of these provisions exist in the current law.
Workers Face Heat Globally
Since the root cause of the increasing temperatures and heat waves is global warming, workers in countries around the world face similar dangers. The United Nations’ International Labour Organization found that forty-two hundred workers worldwide died due to heat waves in 2020. The International Trade Union Confederation named “climate risks” the theme of this year’s International Workers’ Memorial Day.
According to data from the European Trade Union Confederation, the European Union has seen a 42 percent increase in heat-related deaths at work since 2000. They state that only six of the EU’s twenty-seven member states have specific legislation on protecting workers during heat waves.
In the United States, heat-related workplace deaths have similarly increased — forty-three workers died in 2022, up from an average of thirty-four in previous years, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Earlier this summer, the US Department of Labor proposed regulations with protections for workers that increase commensurate with the temperatures. Though similar proposed regulations have previously been struck down by state legislatures in Florida and Texas.
According to the International Labour Organization, in Asia, around 75 percent of workers face extreme heat at work, and in Africa, almost 93 percent of workers suffer extreme temperatures.
Workers and unions have been organizing for legislation and protection from heat and the knock-on effects of climate change. Workers in Australia and the United States have negotiated legislation aimed to protect workers exposed to high temperatures, several unions in the Democratic Republic of Congo have put forward demands for miners in dangerous conditions, and firefighters in Spain organized to get the government to recognize and implement protections against dangerous wildfire smoke.
Heat Is Just One Battle
Workers in Greece are calling for some such similar relief. In Athens on July 17, the third day of the July heat wave, delivery workers gathered outside Greece’s Department of Labor, clinging to the bits of shade on the pavement as the sun beat down. Their demands were for a full ban on delivery work once the temperature hits 38°C (100°F), with payment for workers and strict implementation. The temperature at the time of the gathering was one degree Celsius higher than that. Standing on the sidewalk felt like standing next to a lit oven.
But unions have noted that Greece’s current government, led by the conservative New Democracy party, is not particularly worker-friendly. In the past years, Greece overhauled its labor law, allowing some ten-hour workdays where the country had previously only allowed eight-hour workdays in what New Democracy identified as a necessary move to “correct injustices of the past” and led labor unions to go on strike. In the last month, the country passed into law the possibility of a six-day workweek which New Democracy lauded as a boon to the economy. The delivery union SBEOD has called this evidence “they are determined to kill us at work.”
“We are determined to continue to fight for work and life with dignity,” stated the union. “We ask the Ministry of Labor to take immediate action on the heat wave and declare that we are not and will not become expendable.”
It is no exaggeration: if Greece continues to drag its feet on providing such protections, workers will face increasingly impossible conditions. If change is not made soon, more will die just trying to complete a day’s work.