Power, institutional change and the transformation of Greek employment relations

The institutions governing the Greek labour market have undoubtedly gone through a period of sustained and comprehensive change in the course of the Greek crisis. Although institutional change in the pre-crisis era followed the pattern of incremental erosion and path-dependence, the period of the crisis has been marked by a significant shift in this pattern. The changes that were engineered in the institutional framework of employment relations were abrupt, severely contested by labour market actors, and unilaterally imposed by the state, which in turn was compelled to abide by the conditions of the bailout agreements. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the changes in the employment relations institutions against the backdrop of literature and theories on institutional change and emphasise the new power dynamics unleashed by these changes.