Circular-directive, which provides clarifications on article 33 of Law 5053/2023 (Α΄ 158), entitled “remuneration for seniority in the private sector and adjustment of employees’ salaries”, issued by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security .

The most basic instructions, included in the circular, which is signed by the General Secretary of Labor Relations, Anna Stratinaki, are:

1. As of 1/1/2024, the suspension of the validity of provisions of laws, regulatory acts, collective agreements or arbitration decisions, which provide for increases in salaries or daily wages, including those related to seniority, is lifted, with the sole condition that a specific working time has passed , such as the multi-year allowance, the working time allowance, the three-year allowance and the five-year allowance, which was imposed by Article 4 of Act No. 6/28.2.2012 of the Council of Ministers.

2. The method of proof of seniority, completed or to be completed in the above-mentioned intervals, depends on the content of the seniority provisions of the Collective Labor Regulation (of Law 1876/1990, as applicable), in which, due to the nature of the work and the other conditions, defined by law, to which the employee is subject and which may specifically regulate the issues of recognition and counting of previous work experience.

If it is not regulated otherwise by such a text of Collective Labor Regulation, the previous service is recognized as the one completed with the same or another employer in the same specialty.

3. For those employees who are paid the minimum statutory salary or daily wage, the time of a dependent contract or employment relationship, spent with any employer and in any specialty, before 2/14/2012 and after 1 /1/2024. The above-mentioned increase, due to seniority, is determined as follows:

a) For employees, with a dependent employment relationship, at a rate of 10% for each three years of service and up to three three years and, in total, at a rate of 30% for a service of nine years or more.

b) For artisans, with a dependent employment relationship, at a rate of 5% for each three years of service and up to six three years and, in total, 30% for service of 18 years or more.

4. The working time completed until 14/2/2012 (or will be completed from 1/1/2024 onwards) with part-time status is taken into account – as prior service time for the purposes of article 33 of Law 5053/ 2023 – in the same way that is taken into account for the comparable employee, i.e. the corresponding full-time employee of par. 2/b’ of article 2 of Law 3846/2010 (A’ 66), as applicable. For the calculation of this length of service, part-time work corresponding to the normal (legal or contractual) daily time of the aforementioned comparable employee corresponds to one day of length of service.

5. If the paid regular wages are higher than the legal wages, the increases, the increments and the amounts in general resulting from the application of the above, are set off with the difference that arises between the paid and legal wages, with the payment of which they are paid in full or partially.

6. For the period from 2/14/2012 to 12/31/2023 no claim is made nor are salary increases due, including those related to seniority, with the sole condition that a specific working time has passed, as stated above, nor is it allowed to calculate seniority completed from 14/2/2012 to 31/12/2023.