Filenews 4 July 2024 - by Adamos Adamou
The effort of the government and especially the Ministry of Labor to combat undeclared and illegal work is in full swing and already the new tools that will be used to limit the phenomenon that has intensified recently have made their way to Parliament.
Specifically, Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou announced that at yesterday's meeting the Council of Ministers approved three bills to tackle illegal and undeclared employment more effectively, within the framework of the government's policy to better regulate the labour market.
These are the legislation that will double the extrajudicial fine for illegal and undeclared work from €500 to €1,000, the mandatory electronic census of all employees and their terms of employment - in the ERGANI system - and the inclusion of liability to the main contractor, in addition to the subcontractor, for cases of undeclared work.
Issues and legislation that were dealt with by the Labour Advisory Board about two months ago and on which the Minister of Labour requested in writing the positions of all the social partners.
As a result, the three bills were approved yesterday and will probably be officially submitted to Parliament today, i.e. before the closure of the House for the summer, as well as the commitment of Yiannis Panayiotou. As the minister said, in cooperation with the parliamentary Working Committee, the conclusion of the discussion will be sought as soon as possible. Their passage, however, is de facto postponed to September, as there will be a recess of the work of the Parliament for the summer.
Referring to the bills approved, the minister said that they provide on the one hand for the utilization of technology through the electronic recording of the terms of employment of all employees and on the other hand for the tightening of penalties through the possibility of imposing extrajudicial fines. Specifically, it will become mandatory to register specific data of all new and existing employees in the ERGANI information system of the Ministry of Labour, while an extrajudicial fine of €1,000 will be imposed for each case of illegal and undeclared employment. The fine will be increased for repetitions of the infringement.
He also said that the bill on the liability of main contractors for cases of their subcontractors when illegal and undeclared work is detected as well as for the cases of persons leaving the workplace during inspections by the competent services was prepared and approved.
He also reminded that increased controls are under way to combat the phenomenon that affects both social funds and competition in the market. He also noted the fact that, in order to be able to methodically tackle illegal and undeclared work, the possibility for employers to be informed about the residence status of foreign workers through the interconnection of the databases of the competent services has been ensured and the process of evaluating applications for work permits for third-country nationals has been significantly accelerated. in combination with the maximum possible utilization of the available domestic human resources.
We note that measures against undeclared and illegal work were promoted in a short period of time, following the discovery of an increase in the phenomenon, to which the large exodus from the market of asylum seekers may have contributed.
On the issue, the Minister of Labour, speaking at the end of May at the assembly of OSEOK, confirmed the increasing trend recently, noting that in the construction industry undeclared and illegal work approaches 25%, which he described as problematic for everyone and especially for healthy competition.
