Labor minister to open social dialogue
Labor and Social Security Minister Yiannis Vroutsis has scheduled back-to-back meetings on Tuesday with professional groups in an effort to sound them out on long-delayed reforms to the labor market, while on Wednesday he is scheduled to meet with the head of the General Confederation of Greek Labor (GSEE), Greece’s largest umbrella union.
Vroutsis’s meetings will begin at noon with the confederation of small and medium-sized enterprises (GSEVEE), followed by representatives of the country’s traders (ESEE) and by industrialists (SEV).
GSEE, meanwhile, has scheduled an assembly on Tuesday to discuss its stance ahead of its meeting with the minister on Wednesday. GSEE has called for a law reducing the minimum wage to be recalled, and for collective labor contracts to go back into force, saying that it will be demanding that any collective agreement be signed under the aegis of the International Labor Organization «so there can be no room for doubt.”
Vroutsis will be meeting with labor and professional groups this week after representatives from Greece’s lenders, in Athens for inspections on the country’s reform progress, called on Sunday for additional cutbacks to labor costs.
