61.18% of the fines applied in the first half of the year resulted from controls carried out by the Labour Inspectorate and 40.53% of the infringements recorded concerned issues of working hours and employment contracts.
The data presented by “N” shows that the longer the Digital Card extension takes, the more infractions of this type are constantly recorded by Labor Inspectors.
38,220 inspections were carried out by the Labour Inspectorate throughout the country during the first half of the year, applying 8,261 fines, totalling 22,187,259 euros.
In the month of June alone, according to official data released by the Independent Authority (IAEE), 5,986 checks were carried out (15.66% of the total), resulting in 1,084 fines (13.12%) registered that month, resulting in penalties totaling 2,691,077 euros (12.12%).
In any case, however, the objective of the controls must be accompanied by a corresponding effectiveness, in the area of the violations detected, in order to achieve their gradual limitation.
The data shows that, both monthly and semi-annually, a significant number of sanctions related to labor relations (schedules, contracts) arise, despite the Digital Card being in force, in some sectors of the economy.
The fact that this “real-time” timekeeping model for workers has not yet been extended to the entire labor market probably acts as an incentive for violations to continue in these areas.
More precisely, in the first half of this year there were 605 sanctions related to cases of undeclared work, that is, “black employment – without insurance”, for which fines were applied, totaling 6,751,500 euros.
At the same time, however, another 1,672 infractions were recorded in the personnel records, an element that “hides” overtime, that is, overtime or, even worse, overtime that did not appear anywhere and, therefore, was not paid to the beneficiaries, that is, the employees.
Fines for these cases amounted to 3,994,300 euros in the first half of the year. A further 142 offences were also detected for excessive working hours (total fines of 225 thousand euros), as well as 930 offences for improper use of the Digital Card (fines of 2,604,100 euros).
Thus, in total, for processes involving overtime and employment contracts, 3,349 infractions were recorded (percentage of 40.53%) in the first half of this year, corresponding to fines of 13,574,900 (percentage of 61.18%).
A similar picture was formed by the AAEE for June individually, although a small drop was noted in both indicators above.
More specifically, during the month under analysis, 53 infractions were detected for undeclared work (fines of 567 thousand euros), 178 for staff (fines of 428 thousand euros), 25 for excessive working hours (fines of 46 thousand euros) and 121 for Digital Card (fines
376,000 euros).
In total, 377 infractions related to working hours and contracts were recorded in June (rate of 34.77%) and 1,417 thousand euros were applied in fines (rate of 52.65%).
Targets over 74,000 checks in 2024
According to the planning carried out by the Agency’s management, the estimate is that by the end of this year the target of surpassing last year’s 74 thousand checks will be even more achieved.
After all, the two months from July to August traditionally see a significant increase in checks, due to the summer and mainly in the country’s tourist areas.
The estimate is that, at the rate of controls, it is likely that they will exceed 76,000 by the end of December.
But it is a question of how, when and if fines will be reduced for these critical categories, such as working hours and contracts.
It should be remembered that the Digital Card has completed two years of application, since it started on July 1, 2022. So far, it covers around 150 thousand employees, since it applies to all banks and supermarkets in the country with more than 250 employees. It is also applied to insurance companies, private security companies, while DEKO transport companies (OSE, ERGOSE, Fixed Communications, OSY, OASA, OSETH, OASTH, Hellenic Train and Hellenic Maintenance Company) have also joined the same Railway Material system).
Card in tourism and catering
The expansion of the Digital Card to retail and industry from July 1st will be “measured” in terms of its effectiveness in these industries from the autumn onwards.
After all, for the two-month period from July to August, the order received by the Labor inspection levels is to continue the advisory work regarding the proper functioning of the Digital Card and avoid fines for companies in the two sectors above.
Therefore, the eventual compliance with working hours and overtime that should be paid should not be established before next October for the approximately 600 thousand workers employed in commerce and industry.
The key point, however, is undoubtedly the expansion of the Digital Card for tourism and catering, which should start testing from September. These are two sectors with high default rates in both the area of hours and contracts.