Famellos: The gov't has attacked labour rights

The need for significant changes in workplace health and safety in Greece was emphasised by the leader of the opposition SYRIZA–Progressive Alliance party, Sokratis Famellos, who accused the government of having “attacked” and “weakened” the rules in this area.

“Workplace safety is an integral part of a country’s progress, as well as of the development and sustainability of entrepreneurship," Famellos said during his meeting with the President of the Thessaloniki Labour Centre, Haris Kyprianidis, and the President of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, President of OSETEE and Secretary for Occupational Health and Safety of the GSEE, Andreas Stoimenidis.

“Our country must make significant changes, because the government has attacked labour rights over the past six years, but also health and safety issues, and has weakened them,” he stressed, and continued:

“Instead of the government hiding from its responsibilities and engaging in scaremongering against workers’ representatives, it should assume—albeit belatedly—responsibility for the decline in health and safety standards, and agree that we should have a discussion so that services can be reinforced in an organised state, and not by passing the buck to an independent authority,” he said.

At the same time, Famellos noted that he will make a proposal to PASOK and the New Left for dialogue to discuss health and safety in the workplace, as well as the change of the legal framework governing this, with the aim of creating a credible body for recording workplace accidents.