Background information

On 15 September, a new law passed (No. 4722, Part B, art. 15), which includes temporary and urgent measures to limit the dispersion and deal with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The law provides, inter alia, for the replacement of the time of absence of a worker from his work, in cases where he has remained under house quarantine in order to avoid the spread of COVID-19. The new regulation is complementary to the measures taken in March 2020, concerning private sector employees and applies for the period after 1 September 2020.

Content of measure

The government's new measure, in line with the measures taken in March 2020, provides that employers employing workers placed in preventive house quarantine for seven or fourteen days, in order to protect themselves and their colleagues from possible exposure to risk due to COVID-19 may request the worker to provide his work with the teleworking system.

If teleworking is not possible, the worker after the end of his forced absence must make up for half of the working days and hours of his quarantine. This replacement will take place over a period of four months, until 31 December 2020 and will include one hour of additional work after the end of his daily hours.

The replacement period shall not be considered overtime or overtime and the worker shall not be entitled to any increase in his remuneration.
The employee's stay at home is covered in its entirety (salary and insurance) by the employer

Use of measure

There is no information. The programme is in progress.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Employees in standard employment Workers in non-standard forms of employment	Applies to all businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Company / Companies	Companies

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement	No involvement
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• No involvement
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

The social partners had no involvement in designing, implementing and monitoring of the measure.

Views and reactions

There are no reactions by the social partners.

Sources

• 01 September 2020: Quarantined workers to make up lost hour (www.ekathimerini.com)
• 15 September 2020: Law 4772/2020 (Νόμος 4772/2020) (www.kodiko.gr)