Health Minister Adonis Georgiades has called the PASOK proposal for a four-day working week without a pay cut unworkable for Greece.
“It’s not exactly a PASOK proposal, he said opening the debate, i.e. treatment. It is something that has been implemented in some countries in Europe, not with much success,”he said, speaking to SKAI.
In fact, the minister also referred to specific examples of countries that follow a similar policy. “In The Netherlands there is no law, but the social partners have made an agreement in certain sectors, with the agreement of employers and employees and with a pay cut, not without a cut. Spain which has put a subsidy for this, has very little participation, minimal,”he stressed.
“It’s not getting much traction anywhere after all, whereas when these programs were started, they were touted as the future. Eventually even the people who started them are slowly taking them back. It’s not that easy.”
And he added saying:
“These programs have a structural problem,they create two-tier workers. Because even where they are applied, they are not applied to all workers. They are applied in certain industries, mostly in office jobs. In essence, it creates a nomenclature of employees who are very favored over the others who work too much.”
Reflecting on the expert doctor in Samos who collapsed after 5 days of continuous familiarity, Mr. Georgiades stressed that the woman in question had made use of a law that allowed her to carry out her farming in Attica, noting that he had not mentioned a health issue concerning her, as – as he said – “dI don’t like to make such revelations“, unlike Pavlos Polakis who made it public, even commenting pointedly that “he understands so much and has so many sensitivities“.
He explained that the relevant legal framework provides that even if someone chooses to do agriculture in Attica, there is a provision that allows the system to temporarily move them to another area to meet emergency needs. As he said, this was the case with the move to Samos, where – according to him and what he heard from the hospital – she was “very happy”, did not complain and worked without undue burden by ESY standards.
She also clarified that the on-call work she did was 5 days “on call”, i.e. from home, with an obligation to respond if needed, which ultimately did not happen. As he said, “the phone didn’t ring in the end,” acknowledging, however, that there was a psychological pressure from the wait. At the same time, she noted that she withdrew her original post, not because of pressure, but admitting – as she said – that she was “overwhelmed“.
She admitted at the same time that there is indeed a heavy workload in the NHS, noting that “certain categories of workers, mainly nurses but also doctors in some cases, work very intensively”.
“Tsipras-Androulakis contest to see who can say the greatest line”
Then the discussion turned to political news, with Adonis Georgiadis noting that “if you told any other party of the post-independence era and any government that after seven years it’s not doing well because it’s only ahead of the second party by a double score, they would think you’re on cannabis or dope. We have been spoiled by Mitsotakis,”while on the joint letter of the 5 MPs on the federal state, he commented, “They wrote an article and raised 5 concerns, and the battle of the Dramalis didn’t happen.”
“In the end, do we want the MP to be mute or a talker? If he is a talker, he may miss something and tell us something we don’t like,”he noted.
As for the opposition, he focused on Nikos Androulakis and Alexis Tsipras, noting that the two are having a contest to see who can say the biggest line. “I believe from the polls that Tsipras will logically be second, it seems,”he added.
To conclude by saying:
“We are choosing who will represent us at the European table on how much money each country will get from Europe over the next five years. Who should go? Mitsotakis who did the job 7 years ago ago and brought the most money ever to Greece? Will Androulakis, who doesn’t speak English very well, go? Will Zoe Konstantopoulou go, will Velopoulos go? Will Tsipras go, who is the only important thing he has to say in his life is 17 hours of negotiation?”
