Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
Speaker 1: now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. Happy Friday's
Speaker 2: fifth of July.
Speaker 1: I'm Zara, I'm Sam.
Speaker 2: We've spoken many times on this podcast about the four
Speaker 2: day working week, but it is safe to say that
Speaker 2: I don't think we have ever spoken about a six
Speaker 2: day working week.
Speaker 1: Well, a six day.
Speaker 2: Working week is the reality that some Greek workers are
Speaker 2: facing now after the country's parliament passed a new labor
Speaker 2: law that adds an extra eight hours to the working week,
Speaker 2: and that is for some industries. It's an attempt to
Speaker 2: address Greece's shrinking population and skills shortage. But in today's
Speaker 2: deep Dive, Sam, we're going to explain that decision a
Speaker 2: bit further. Before that deep dive, though, what's making headlines.
Speaker 1: WA Senator Fatima Payman will become an independent senator after
Speaker 1: quitting the Labour Party. Last week, Payman crossed the floor
Speaker 1: going against the government to vote on the motion about
Speaker 1: the recognition of the State of Palestine. Payman was suspended
Speaker 1: from federal labor quote meeting and processes over the weekend
Speaker 1: before she announced she would move to the cross bench. Yesterday.
Speaker 1: The twenty nine year old said she was quote deeply
Speaker 1: torn over her decision to quit labor, but that she
Speaker 1: no longer believed her quote principles align with those of
Speaker 1: the leadership of the Labour Party.
Speaker 2: Authorities in Victoria have confirmed synthetic opioids were found in
Speaker 2: four bodies in a Melbourne house last week. The state's
Speaker 2: Health department has issued a drug alet for a white
Speaker 2: opioid powder being sold as cocaine. Vick Health warned the
Speaker 2: substance is over one hundred times more potent than heroin,
Speaker 2: and said even small doses can have life threatening effects.
Speaker 2: Comes after four people, including a seventeen year old boy,
Speaker 2: were found dead in a Melbourne home on the twenty
Speaker 2: sixth of June.
Speaker 1: At least ten people are believed to have died during
Speaker 1: a Category for storm in Jamaica called Hurricane Beryl. Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Andrew Holness has declared an island wide emergency, with
Speaker 1: curfew and evacuation orders in place. Neighbouring Caribbean nations have
Speaker 1: also been impacted by the storm, with local authorities in
Speaker 1: Saint Vincent's and the Grenadines warning about possible mass homelessness
Speaker 1: and food shortages. The US National Hurricane Center has urged
Speaker 1: parts of eastern Mexico and southern Texas to monitor Hurricane
Speaker 1: Beryl's progress as attracts west over the next few days.
Speaker 2: And today's good news, Australian scientists have made a breakthrough
Speaker 2: discovery about the family lives of blue whales. A project
Speaker 2: led by Charles Darwin University and A and U captured
Speaker 2: a world first recording of a pygmy blue whale nursing
Speaker 2: her calf underwater in timor less day. Evidence around where
Speaker 2: blue whales reproduce and how they interact with their calves
Speaker 2: has remained largely unknown in the scientific community, that is
Speaker 2: until now. Okay, so Sam, we have spoken many times
Speaker 2: about all the different movements towards a four day work week.
Speaker 2: I think we've even explored whether we would do it.
Speaker 1: There's a unique sort of reaction from audience members when
Speaker 1: we talk about this. It really hits a nerve.
Speaker 2: It does, and I mean there are obvious reasons having
Speaker 2: less working days does seem extremely appealing for certain audiences.
Speaker 2: But that's not actually what I want to talk to
Speaker 2: you about today. I'm not sure if you're across it,
Speaker 2: but Greece has just announced a six day working week
Speaker 2: for some people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've spent time on the four day working week,
Speaker 1: and the reason for that being tabled is to give
Speaker 1: people a better chance of the work life balance.
Speaker 2: And I mean that's one of the reasons, the other
Speaker 2: being productivity.
Speaker 1: Right, and this has obviously come amidst more working from
Speaker 1: home patterns after the pandemic. But the six day working
Speaker 1: week now kind of moves the pendulum right the other way.
Speaker 1: Where does this all come from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so look, it is a fairly unorthodox move, especially
Speaker 2: in the context that we've just set up, which is
Speaker 2: that I think the rest of the world is moving
Speaker 2: in one direction and seemingly Greece is moving in an
Speaker 2: entirely different one. To give you a bit of a
Speaker 2: lay of the land, the Greek parliament passed a labor
Speaker 2: law to add an extra eight hours to the working week.
Speaker 2: So staff can choose between breaking this up into an
Speaker 2: additional two hours a.
Speaker 1: Day, so you could stay with a five day working
Speaker 1: week long days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really long days, or you could work that extra
Speaker 2: full shift in one go. And to get into the
Speaker 2: specifics here, because I think a lot of headlines might
Speaker 2: miss this, those people will get paid a forty percent
Speaker 2: overtime bonus for working the additional hours, and most significantly,
Speaker 2: it is optional.
Speaker 1: Okay, this isn't a blankut.
Speaker 2: Rule for every worker. It will only apply to certain
Speaker 2: industries and it's to those industries that are working on
Speaker 2: a twenty four hour basis, so like a manufacturing facility
Speaker 2: or something like that. It's also we're not talking about
Speaker 2: public hospitals or anything here, with only talking about private companies.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the Greek Parliament has introduced this label law.
Speaker 1: What did they say are the key reasons why they
Speaker 1: think this is an important move?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the government's been pretty explicit as to why
Speaker 2: they are introducing this, and it is part of a
Speaker 2: suite of other reforms, so it's not a standalone bill.
Speaker 2: This reform has mainly come about because of an issue
Speaker 2: with the Greek economy. So essentially what's happening is that
Speaker 2: there are lots and lots of well educated young Greek
Speaker 2: people who are leaving the country to work elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Interesting and on the kind of doorstep of Europe.
Speaker 2: You've got a lot, you've got many options, and the
Speaker 2: results of that, as you would expect, is that there
Speaker 2: is a gap in productivity. We know that young workers
Speaker 2: and specifically ones in skilled labor, would be contributing a
Speaker 2: lot to the economy, and yet here we have this
Speaker 2: gap that's emerged with this kind of mass exodus of
Speaker 2: young Greek people that's alongside declining birth rates. And the
Speaker 2: Greek Prime Minister has called all of this a bit
Speaker 2: of a ticking time bomb and notional threat.
Speaker 1: And this is on top of an economy that wasn't
Speaker 1: particularly strong to start with. Over the last ten years, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So Greece has had a fairly tumultuous economic
Speaker 2: narrative emerge over the last decade or so. It has
Speaker 2: faced extremely dire economic conditions, experiencing what we call a
Speaker 2: debt crisis. In twenty fifteen, Greece defaulted on a one
Speaker 2: point five billion euro loan from the IMF.
Speaker 1: The International Monetary Fund.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it became the first developed country to do so.
Speaker 2: I like vividly remember that. And this is an extremely
Speaker 2: unnecessary anecdote, but I remember because I had just finished
Speaker 2: school and was traveling and was in Greece, and it
Speaker 2: was at the time where you couldn't take out any
Speaker 2: money from any ATM. Themt ATMs exactly, and so I
Speaker 2: had just a bit of cash in my suitcase that
Speaker 2: I had to keep on me at all times. And
Speaker 2: it was a really strange time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a really defining moment for the country,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of eliciting images that we associate
Speaker 1: with something like a great depression, like you know, massive
Speaker 1: wheelbarrows of cash being carted around the country because inflation
Speaker 1: was just so wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was what it was like in Greece
Speaker 2: for quite a while. It kind of began after the
Speaker 2: GFC and then continued on for a fairly long time
Speaker 2: until pretty recently. So it's only very recently that the
Speaker 2: economy has actually begun to surge, which is a complete
Speaker 2: three sixty. It's actually forecast to grow nearly three percent
Speaker 2: this year. And the current government has taken credit for
Speaker 2: really turning that economy around.
Speaker 1: And so this current government is positioning itself as pro business.
Speaker 1: They've put out this policy saying that people should work
Speaker 1: an extra day. How have the Greek population responded to
Speaker 1: this policy?
Speaker 2: Look, I think it's fair to say that there has
Speaker 2: been some pretty strong opposition, particularly from the unions. As
Speaker 2: you would expect, so the unions are there to represent workers,
Speaker 2: and so they are kind of the mouthpieces through which
Speaker 2: we've heard this story. The new rules were met with
Speaker 2: strike action by members of the unions. There was kind
Speaker 2: of this immediate striking that happened. Greek people already work
Speaker 2: the longest hours in Europe. Wow. Yeah, so they put
Speaker 2: in an average of forty two hours a week according
Speaker 2: to EU figures. And so I think that's what the
Speaker 2: unions are really pointing to with their opposition to this
Speaker 2: new law. They're arguing that the country is essentially putting
Speaker 2: profits before people. I mean, it's a preticlear line of
Speaker 2: argument there. One union leader has said that I'll quote here,
Speaker 2: this has been passed by a government ideologically committed to
Speaker 2: generating ever bigger profits for capital. He said, better productivity
Speaker 2: comes with better work conditions, a better quality of life
Speaker 2: for employees, and that we know is about less hours.
Speaker 1: Not more. And that's kind of the four day work
Speaker 1: week argument exactly.
Speaker 2: And so he is saying there that they are trying
Speaker 2: to increase productivity with this move, they're trying to stimulate
Speaker 2: more action in the economy, they're trying to do all
Speaker 2: these things. But the unions are firmly of the belief
Speaker 2: that this will have the opposite effect. And I think
Speaker 2: that there is also this argument that if the exit
Speaker 2: is of young workers, these young workers can look anywhere
Speaker 2: else in the world and see that they have more options,
Speaker 2: more flexibility, and I can imagine that there is a
Speaker 2: fear that this might further alienate those young Greek workers.
Speaker 1: And are the government using any examples from Europe, but
Speaker 1: even from around the world in driving this policy forward.
Speaker 2: I mean, as I've said, it is a fairly unorthodox
Speaker 2: move here. So we've kind of seen the opposite. As
Speaker 2: I've insinuated, We've seen companies and some levels of government
Speaker 2: in Germany, in France, the UK, Spain and Iceland, they've
Speaker 2: all continued to experiment with what a flexible hybrid workplace
Speaker 2: looks like. As well as these models for a four
Speaker 2: day work week, there were these results from a UK
Speaker 2: trial of sixty one companies that showed the shorter work
Speaker 2: week improved productivity, morale and team culture. It even had
Speaker 2: employee health outcomes increase as a result. Here in Australia
Speaker 2: we've spoken about it, I believe on the pod before
Speaker 2: an act Parliamentary committee has recommended a four day work
Speaker 2: week trial for the public service sector. They think that
Speaker 2: the sector is well placed to see how this four
Speaker 2: day work week could succeed. In Australia more broadly, so overall,
Speaker 2: the trend appears to be towards the four day work week,
Speaker 2: not the six day workweek.
Speaker 1: Zara, I've got one question to ask you that I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about. Well, we've been chatting, so you said
Speaker 1: the Greek people were already working some of the longest
Speaker 1: hours in Europe forty two hours a week on average
Speaker 1: on average. Wouldn't there be an argument to be made
Speaker 1: that this legislation would just ensure that they're getting paid
Speaker 1: for the work that they're already doing.
Speaker 2: It's a good point, I think. When I was reading
Speaker 2: about this, some of the concerns that kept arising was
Speaker 2: the fact that there is already so much overtime being
Speaker 2: done and not paid, as you just said, and the
Speaker 2: reason for that is there is not a whole lot
Speaker 2: of oversight, there's not a whole lot of policing of
Speaker 2: these kind of overtime.
Speaker 1: Hours, particularly in the private sector exactly.
Speaker 2: And the concern is that this will just extend to
Speaker 2: these new hours that they're interesting. You're supposedly only meant
Speaker 2: to be doing this additional block. You'll get compensated for that.
Speaker 2: But then if employees are expecting more on top of that,
Speaker 2: who is enforcing that sort of fair compensation And if
Speaker 2: that is absent, then we're looking at further issues for
Speaker 2: these employees who are already working over time and might
Speaker 2: even have to do more hours.
Speaker 1: Wow, a seven day work week.
Speaker 2: That's obviously just one hypothetical, but it is a concern
Speaker 2: that I've read about, particularly that's been voiced by the
Speaker 2: unions in Greece.
Speaker 1: I'd love to know what you guys think listening from home.
Speaker 1: If you've got any thoughts on this, feel free to
Speaker 1: dm us on Instagram over the weekend with your thoughts
Speaker 1: on what you think of the policy in Greece at
Speaker 1: the moment. And thank you for joining us on the
Speaker 1: Daily OS this week. It's been a big week of
Speaker 1: podcasting here and we'll be back again in your ears
Speaker 1: on Monday morning. A quick shout out though, I'll put
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Speaker 1: Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calcadion woman
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