only 19 SSE of sectoral or homo-professional, national or local nature signed and approved by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in 2023, as can be seen from the data processed by INE GSEE in the context of the 2024 annual report on the progress of the Greek economy.
Of these, 12 are national sectoral and homo-professional SSEs and 7 are local sectoral and homo-professional SSEs. In the same year, 209 operational MOUs were signed.
In addition, for the profession of sailors, where special provisions apply, in the year 2023, 4 co-occupational contracts of a mandatory nature have been signed, covering all workers of the profession. It is noted that these contracts have been filed and approved by the Minister of Merchant Shipping.
Regarding the coverage of employees of SSEs at the operational level, based on the monthly report of the ERGANI system for the year 2023, the 209 new operational SSEs consist of 137,171 employees.
7 out of 10 business SSEs do not see an increase
It is remarkable that the majority of them, i.e. the 150 business contracts (71%), which cover 78,051 wage workers, remain unchanged in wages, that is, they do not include the least which increases the wages of the workers they cover. Only 59 operating contracts (29%) provided wage increases to 59,120 workers.
At the sectoral and co-professional level, during 2023, it should be noted that a total of 43 SSEs (not including EGSSE) have been implemented. In other words, in addition to the 23 new sectoral and co-occupational collective bargaining agreements signed in 2023, an additional 20 collective agreements from previous years were implemented (due to the possibility of signing collective bargaining agreements within three year), which ended in the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 and still forced to apply.
The 43 sectoral and homo-occupational collective bargaining agreements implemented are estimated to cover potentially and theoretically (according to available data) approximately 808,000 people, a number that corresponds to approximately 31.6% of all salaried employees (2,555,090).
However, it is important to point out that the actual rate of coverage of workers through sectoral and co-occupational SSEs is significantly reduced when it is taken into account that out of a total of 43 SSEs, only 9 have been declared generally mandatory , ie mandatory that applies to all workers from all businesses in the sector or profession. These SSEs are related to hotels, tourist and food shops, beauticians, private insurance and maritime professions.
The rest of the collective agreements bind only the members of the contracting parties (employers and employees), which, however, cannot be checked considering the common practice for many businesses to declare that they are not members. of employers’ organizations, with to avoid the use of collective agreements.
Finally, and regarding the wage conditions of the sectoral and homoprofessional collective agreements signed in 2023, based on the analysis of their content, it can be seen that the majority of them, i.e. 17 out of 23, provide wage increases in relation to the previous years’ contract.
In conclusion, as pointed out by INE GSEE in its report, which observes the annual evolution of SSEs from 2010 onwards, where the coverage of workers in SSEs before the crisis is close to 100% according to of the OECD, it is known that for more than a decade the institution of free collective bargaining has remained weak in a small number of SSEs.