How many national basic minimum wages does Greece have?
In a minimum wage economy and society, as the Greek one increasingly became in the second half of the last decade, the issues of the minimum wage gain political, social and communicative interest.
How many national basic minimum wages does Greece have? It could be asked as a question on a game show. If the game was of the “millionaire” type, the alternative answers could be: 1, 2, 4, 8. The logical thinking participant will answer: one. Right or wrong; What do you say?
Despite so many “memorandum” and “anti-memorandum” changes, Greece does not have a single basic minimum wage, as is the case in all other EU countries that have a national minimum wage, and in the normal countries of the contemporary world in the first quarter of . 21st century – in those of which there is a national minimum wage. He has at least two.
At the end of the minimum wage process the Minister of Labor by ministerial decision will determine a minimum wage for employees and a minimum daily wage for artisans. For employees the current minimum wage is €713.00, for craftsmen the current minimum daily wage is €31.85.
The employee-craftsman distinction in terms of severance pay has been abolished. But the employee-artisan distinction is maintained in terms of their remuneration. That is why we have (at least) two different national basic minimum wages. There are hundreds of thousands of artisans in the Greek economy. The useful ERGANI Information System of the Ministry of Labor would do well to make use of the data submitted by businesses and to be able to estimate their exact number.
The difference is not only formal. It is substantial and economical. On a monthly basis and on a full basis, a different income from salaried work arises if one is an employee or a craftsman. And since in economic activity there is a need to calculate and pay by the day and the hour, different daily and hourly wages also arise.
Those paid a monthly salary are paid without changing their pay according to the number of actual work days in each month. In theory they get 25/25 due to the average of 25 working days per month that have “run out” (and to count insurance days) from the time of the work semester. Which with the conventional five-day work week have in practice been reduced to 22 working days per month.
Day wage earners receive as many days’ wages as the actual working days they correspond to for each month of full employment. Day-wage earners add up to one to two extra days a month, and at least 13 extra days a year.
Greece therefore has at least two national basic minimum wages. Rather for the employees. Rather for the craftsmen. It has inherited them from the Greece of the 1950s and from the “half jobs” of the post-colonial period, which have left to this day the small technical complexities.
Now that the process of determining the minimum wage is starting again, which is more administrative-political (which should not be mainly so) and less economic-social (which should be mainly so), it may be – one more – opportunity to address this simple but essential technical pending.
For Greece to obtain a single basic minimum wage, which does not result in a single basic minimum daily wage and a single basic hourly wage. As in all other EU countries that have a national minimum wage.
How it will cease to be a minimum wage economy and society is another, more important, discussion.
* Christos A. Ioannou is an economist.
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