Earlier this summer, the Greek parliament passed an amendment to existing legislation governing strike action, aimed at accelerating appeals hearings on whether or not strikes are illegal.The new law also changes the rules governing the designation of the appeals court's panel in cases of deliberation upon the legality of a strike. However, these amendments have been criticised on the grounds that they curtail trade union autonomy.
In Greek law, the right to strike is protected by the Constitution and is an extension of trade union freedom. However, the exercise of the right to strike is subject to certain conditions, the non-observance of which renders the strike illegal. Additional restrictions are in place in the case of strikes involving employees in public utilities. The so-called abusive strike is a special category of illegal strike.
Whether a strike is classed as abusive or non-abusive is judged by courts after weighing the opposing interests of the strikers and the employer, and the extent of negative consequences on society or the national economy, in combination with the form and the duration of the strike, the extent to which third party rights are violated and the proportion of the enterprise’s loss to the expected benefit of the strikers (proportionality principle).
Earlier this summer, the parliament passed a legislative amendment providing that:
A motion to adjourn the hearing may be granted only for exceptional reasons and, if granted, the adjournment will be only for 24 hours.
The explanatory report of this legal amendment states that, due to the urgent nature of the cases regarding the legality of a strike, which are heard according to grievance proceedings, the amendment in question is necessary in order to facilitate the accelerated hearing of these cases before the Court of Appeals.
The Ministry of Justice, on the other side, points out that the amendment aims at ‘accelerating the relevant proceedings so that it is made clear, within a short period of time, also before the Court of Appeals… whether the strikers are legally exercising the relevant right’. Furthermore, the Ministry of Justice holds that, with the acceleration of the appeal proceedings, ‘workers will be able to exercise the right to strike unimpeded... with the approval by the court of second instance’. Moreover, in the event that the strike is declared illegal, the workers ‘will know that they have to end the strike, so that they do not face the legal consequences and so that their employers and society do not suffer financial effects and what these effects entail’.
The vague criteria according to which the illegality of a strike is determined have been severely criticised by the legal world, as they are deemed to create legal uncertainty and ignore the conflictual nature of the right to strike, while, in the end, the overwhelming majority of strikes are declared as illegal by the Courts of Law.
In this context, any further acceleration of the proceedings practically limits any margins left to trade union autonomy by the legal framework, which is already deemed to be interventionist, and by case law.
At the same time, the designation of the Court of Appeal’s panel by the Justice of the Court of Appeals or the President of the Board Governing the Court of Appeals is a measure that was severely criticised during the debate on this legal change, for violating the ‘principle of the natural judge’ that is protected by the constitution. The principle of the natural judge is cited in article 8 of the Greek Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of extraordinary courts. According to article 8: ‘No person shall be denied the right to the judge assigned to him by law against his will. Judicial committees or extraordinary courts, under any name whatsoever, shall not be established’.
At the same time, the demand for a quick resolution of individual labour disputes has not yet been met, a fact that is having particularly adverse financial effects on employees.
Sofia Lampousaki, Labour Institute of Greek General Confederation of Labour (INE/GSEE)