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Before the debt crisis of 2010 forced Greece into almost permanent austerity, its hotel workers enjoyed wages and conditions (through a sector collective agreement) similar to those in other economic sectors. This was against the international trend where low wages and poor conditions were standard. Sweeping deregulation by Greek governments has brought much of the hotel industry into line with other countries. The sector agreement, now covering a much smaller proportion of the workforce, survived but has experienced ‘institutional conversion’, delivering a much poorer outcome. Despite buoyant tourism, institutional deregulation and derogation have delivered the employers’ major objective of matching the workforce to the fluctuating demand for labour.

Using a critical employment relations approach, the chapter illustrates the implications of labour market reforms for workers. It traces changes in public policy and includes worker reflections on their conditions from data collected during 2018–2019. It unravels the antagonistic and conflict-driven elements of the employment relationship; a relationship that has been re-shaped by the active role of the State whose intervention favoured the employers' side at the expense of employees' interests. In addition, to shed light on the effects of the pandemic that broke out in February–March 2020, the chapter also draws upon secondary data such as newspaper articles and reports, as access to workers during the pandemic was practically difficult while the latter is still evolving. The chapter concludes by demonstrating that the crisis and labour market reforms was an opportunity for employers to introduce and implement a cost-cutting agenda that was in clear conflict with basic facets of a decent work agenda.

The article examines the extent of labour violation in the UK hotel industry and identifies the challenges and difficulties that workers face to defend their employment rights. Drawing on interview material and documents, the article identifies the factors that weaken workers' capacities to bring forward complaints and discusses the organisational, institutional and individual factors making silence dominant in the sector. This multifaceted analysis demonstrates different layers of vulnerability that create a very unfavourable environment for the promotion of employment rights in a context of heightened levels of fear. We contribute to the existing studies by demonstrating that for precarious and insecure workers in particular, the UK model of individual employment rights has ‘no substance’. Our findings highlight that it jeopardises not only the enforcement of rights but also workers' ability to acquire comprehensive knowledge and awareness of them.

Both Greece and Ireland have long suffered high youth unemployment rates and have been pressured to restructure their employment and social systems under the European Employment Strategy. Problems were aggravated by the harsh conditions imposed by the Troika following bail-outs. Yet there was significant divergence in youth employment outcomes between Greece and Ireland despite a convergence of policies. In Ireland, tighter conditionality of benefits and stronger ‘activation’ were already on the agenda of the social actors, so their implementation was not forcefully contested. In Greece, the lack of effective social protection made it difficult for successive governments to build support for flexibilization, and the escalating insecurity of young Greeks and their families gave rise to social unrest and political instability. This contrast leads to a reappraisal of the convergence–divergence debate.

This chapter provides an overview of the Troika's role in the Greek economic crisis, delineating the ways through which it intervened in the political, economic and employment spheres of the Greek nation. It argues that the implementation of Memoranda brought about a tectonic change in the Greek employment and social security systems with dramatic consequences for the working and middle classes. The ideological and political backbone of Memoranda, centred on the reduction of labour costs and social protection expenditure, was underpinned by the strategic interests of large capital in Greece. The functions of planning, monitoring and evaluation of the respective bailout programmes were the Troika's basic means of pressure upon Greek government. The penetration of the Troika into the Greek state bureaucracy, particularly into the bureaucracy of the relevant Greek ministries included the establishment of Troika functionaries inside the ministries and the development of formal and informal relations with Greek bureaucrats.

The article presents the debates on youth unemployment developed in Greece and Ireland by the social actors before and after the outbreak of the economic crisis. The article examines policies of actors (employers, unions, policy bodies) and analyses whether their responses fit within neoliberal, flexicurity or social Europe discourses. It looks at how youth unemployment debates are framed in two different national settings and whether institutional differences affect the convergence towards or divergence from the neoliberal discourse. The article establishes that discourses of Greek social actors are more conflictual than those in Ireland where the history of social partnership is still evident. There is also evidence of changes in policies and discourses pre- and post-crisis.

Young people have been hard hit by the crisis and the austerity measures implemented in Greece since 2010. After six years of significant changes in the Greek employment and social system young people face burgeoning difficulties to find quality and well-paid jobs while the proliferation of flexible and insecure jobs has taken an epidemic form. This article presents the labour market reforms implemented in Greece and shows that these reforms have shifted the bargaining power in favor of employers as labour power has become rather cheap, flexible and adaptable. The narrative that flexibilization will assist economic growth and generate quality jobs seems to be fading away since most newly created jobs are temporary, part-time and low-paid. The dismantling of collective agreements and labour laws through which young employees used to guarantee some protection has meant that poverty, insecurity and deprivation have become persistent features of their social existence.

Twelve arbovirus isolations were made from about 50,000 bloodsucking Diptera, including Culicidae (mosquitoes). Tabanidae (horseflies and deerflies), Simuliidae (black flies), and Ceratopogonidae (punkies) that were collected during 1965 in Wisconsin. The Jamestown Canyon serotype of the California virus complex was isolated from two species of Tabanidae, the horsefly, Hybomitra lasiophthalma (Macq.), and the deerfly Chrysops cincticornis (Walk.), and from the Aedes stimulans (Walk,) and the Aedes communis (DeG,) groups of mosquitoes. The virus apparently circulated among insects for only a short period (June) during 1965. Other isolations in 1965 included trivittatus virus from Aedes trivittatus and as yet unidentified arboviruses from a black fly. Simulium meridionale Riley, and a mixed pool containing mostly Culicoides.

Existing literature suggests that terms and conditions of employment are universally poor in hospitality and catering. Based on fieldwork comprising more than 70 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in the UK and Greece in 2018 and 2019, this article maps the field in the two countries and discusses the key parameters that structure working conditions, pay determination, and the impact of trade unionism and absence thereof. Poor working conditions and precariousness are prevalent in both contexts as expected, but surprisingly wages and other terms and conditions at least for a significant section of the hospitality workforce are comparatively better in Greece. An explanation for these findings is suggested with reference to the tradition of collective bargaining in hotels in Greece which partially survived the 2008 crisis and the legal reforms that followed. Trade unionism, despite its weakening and discrediting, has left its mark as a tradition contributing to the emergence of formal labour-based initiatives and more broadly to maintaining an openness to collectivism and collective action, more so than in the UK context. This combination of the distinct institutional and sectoral features of the Greek case and worker agency has served to ameliorate the context and content of employment for substantial sections of the hospitality workforce.