Abstract
Greek borrowing was implemented through the adoption of three memoranda and eight packages of measures. These packages included actions such as lowering the minimum wage, decreasing pensions and public sector wages, abolition of the 13th and 14th salaries and the 13th and 14th pensions, increases in value-added tax (VAT), higher indirect taxation, the addition of real estate tax, shifting of the emphasis in employment contracts from the sectoral and national level to the enterprise level, drastic cuts in the number of public sector workers, a sharp increase in the sale of public property to foreign and raising retirement age.
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Notes
- 1.
The PASOK government under the prime ministership of George Papandreou came to office after winning the 2009 elections with key slogan that “the money is there” for implementation of a more progressive social state.
- 2.
The term afteractivity means continuing the validity of the regulatory terms of an expired or terminated Collective Labor Agreement.
- 3.
This development obviously leads to a conspicuous reduction when it came to calculation of new pensions. This is because, for the years before 2008, the pension was calculated on the basis of 80% of the last salary whereas for the period 2008–2012 it was calculated on the basis of the accumulated years or months. This did not cause any particular problems since most of the work time was calculated under the old system and the pay cuts were for a short period of time (Mitropoulos 2013: 24).
- 4.
For exactly 40 years (1951–1990) governments obliged insurance companies to deposit employees’ social security contributions at a negative rate of interest in banks, which have made significant profits from this practice. In 1950, the employees’ social security contributions were deposited at a negative rate of −7.6%, in 1954 at −11.1%, in 1974 at −21.8%, in 1981 at −13%, in 1986 at −8.0% and in 1990 at −2.4% (Bogiopoulos 2011: 329–330).
References
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Institute of Labour—Greek General Confederation of Labour (INE-GSEE), 2012, The Greek economy and employment. Annual report 2012. Athens: Institute of Labour—Greek General Confederation of Labour (in Greek).
Kazakos A., 2011, “From collective labor agreements to violence of individual employment contracts”, in Crisis and Labour, Athens: ESIEA Cultural Foundation, pp. 20–32 (in Greek).
Kouzis G., 2011a, “The labour landscape in Greece following the Memorandum” in Crisis and Labour, Athens: ESIEA Cultural Foundation, pp. 34–43 (in Greek).
Kouzis G., 2011b, “Labour in the vortex of the economic crisis and the memorandum: ten points”, Outopia no 97, pp. 7–12 (in Greek).
Kouzis G., 2018, “Labour under attack during the period of crisis and austerity”, in Sotiris P. (ed.) Crisis, movement, strategy: the Greek experience, London: Brill, pp. 88–95.
Mitropoulos A., 2013, Society in the gunpoint. The violent internal devaluation, Athens: Livanis (in Greek).
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Sakellaropoulos, S. (2019). Addressing the Crisis Through Support Packages and Memoranda. In: Greece’s (un) Competitive Capitalism and the Economic Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14319-0_3
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