┋ English version ┋ 23.07.2019 22:23

SYRIZA MP Achtsioglou: SEPE inspectorate is there to protect workers, not party interests

SYRIZA will table a legislative proposal on "substantially strengthening and upgrading the Hellenic Labor Inspectorate (SEPE) and will highlight the issue at the level of the European Parliament," SYRIZA MPs said on Tuesday, after meeting with SEPE representatives.

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They also pledged to "monitor every government move and decisively confront the undermining of SEPE," according to SYRIZA state deputy and former Labor minister Effie Achtsioglou.

The meeting was held in the aftermath of the New Democracy government's decision to bring SEPE under the jurisdiction of the General Secretariat of Labor.

Achtsioglou also said that "the abolition of the independence of the Labor Inspectorate downgrades it to a bureaucratic structure and removes its auditing jurisdiction, as well as its abilities to take initiatives, plan its actions and inspections," which "makes it harder to tackle illegalities in the labor market and weakens the protection of workers' rights and healthy entrepreneurship."

Achtsioglou also described the Minister of Labour Giannis Vroutsis' recent claim that "SEPE will no longer serve any party agenda, as in the past," as "unacceptable and insulting to SEPE employees." She also stressed that in her opinion this shows "the government's perception that SEPE is a party tool and not an employee-protection instrument."