The impact of the financial crisis on industrial relations in Greek industry

The EU’s political and economic system has found itself in its deepest financial crisis ever following the effects of the international crisis, a great burden of which may have originated from the competition in emergent economies, particularly low production cost economies such as China and India (IREC, 2012). The effects of competition gradually led to inevitable disaster in the majority of European industries in the form of the economic and financial crisis, which quickly evolved into a debt crisis in Eurozone member states with unexpected effects on entrepreneurship and industrial relations (IR). The deep financial crisis of the world economy, which also engulfed Greece’s economy, directed the country to resort to the international loan mechanism agreed with the Troika, namely the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is the body supervising Greece’s fiscal and structural change programme. In the context of the support offered by the mechanism in order to face Greece’s crisis, radical reforms were introduced into the administration of public finances and taxation, labour, pension and social security matters. These all influenced IR and their social partners (i. e. key stakeholders) in Greece: employers (ERs) and employees (EEs). The imposition of measures to modify IR in Greece is considered in this document, particularly the measures, response to these reforms and analysis of such reforms’ impact on Greece’s IR system in both the short- and the long-term. The issue of what is happening in IR within the unstable and collapsing socioeconomic environment in Greece needs further research. Therefore, the motive of the current thesis is to examine the impact of the crisis on IR and to assess whether and to what extent there has been a change in the balance of power between key stakeholders (ERs and EEs). As a research vehicle, the construction industry along with cooperative sectors as Energy, Cleaning and Post-logistics have been chosen by the author to consider the changes in Greece’s IR system. Firstly, this represents a major sector of the economy supplemented by cooperative sectors. Secondly, the Troika expects this sector to deliver fast results towards economic recovery and thus improve IR in Greece. Thirdly, as a personnel manager of many years within Greece’s largest construction industry, the author has easy access to key IR actors. Before exploring the impact of the financial crisis on IR within Greek industry, it is necessary and interesting to define the key research questions. Considering the above stated issues regarding the socioeconomic situation in the period 2009–2013 in Greece, many questions could be raised. Given that the main objective of the current research is to investigate what is happening to the IR system in the private sector industry within the unstable and collapsing socioeconomic environment in Greece, the following questions are examined: • How were the problems of the reform measures in IR passed in the period 2009–2013 perceived by the key actors? • Did the reform measures change the balance of power between these stakeholders and to what extent and how did they influence IR and the key stakeholders in Greek industry? • Is there any possibility to revive IR in Greece? In order to answer the raised questions, the research process examines the literature related to IR in general. This offers an important conceptual backdrop to help understand the main contours of Greek IR before and after the crisis. Further, the incidences and causes of the current crisis in Greece are presented, as these mainly influence the IR system in Greece. By exploring the IR system in Greece before the crisis and after the new reform measures, we focus on the institutional changes and employment levels within the economy. The presentation of the literature and analysis of the findings, along with the relevant argumentation, show the possibility to make assumptions about where the Greek IR system fit in the past and where t fits today. We can also examine who the main actors were before the crisis and who are after the imposition of reform measures as well as the traditions and practices of the past and of today. Further, what was the balance of power between the key stakeholders before the crisis and whether and to what extent there has been a change of this balance within the private sector in Greek industry after the new reform measures. Within the scope of this thesis, the literature and data until December 2013 is considered in the research process.