Hellenic Halyvourgia layoffs 'unavoidable', labour ministry sources claim

The repercussion on Hellenic Halyvourgia workers as a whole would have been much worse, if the Supreme Labour Council had not approved the mass layoffs requested by the steel manufacturer, senior sources at the labour ministry said in a statement to the ANA-MPA on Thursday.

Commenting on the firing of 45 of the 74 workers currently employed by the steelworks, the same sources stressed that any other decision would have resulted "either in the factory's closure, in which case all the workers would have lost their jobs without compensation or, in the best case, the workers would have been trapped in a 'grey-area' working regime, with job rotations and marginal salaries of about 150 euros a month."

The ministry stressed that seven meetings were held at the labour ministry since the company first applied to lay off staff in February, dealing with both the compensation package for each employee and laying down strict terms for rehiring workers as soon as the company's financial and production situation allowed.

The Supreme Labour Council's decision marks the first implementation of a new procedure for mass layoffs that was recently introduced, which transferred the powers to approve mass dismissals from the labour minister to the appropriate labour ministry general secretary, who also chairs the Supreme Labour Council.

According to labour ministry sources, this new system was established through the "unanimous decision of all the social partners, putting an end to a skewed framework of the last 31 years, which was unique in Europe." They noted that this had acted as a "boomerang" against the interests of the workers it was nominally trying to protect, leading companies to fold and leaving their workforce without compensation or protection.

GSEE: Government sacrificed steel workers to prove itself to troika

This position was refuted by the General Confederation of Employees of Greece (GSEE), Greece's largest umbrella trade union organisation representing private-sector workers. In an announcement, GSEE said the government "was sacrificing the steel workers in order to prove to the troika that it is following their instructions to the letter."
It said the labour ministry, with the "support of employers using the mass layoffs to press for a reduction in energy costs, confirms in the most painful way that it has neither the intention nor the courage to refuse the lenders' odious measures."