The post-1974 period has built a strong, institutionally consolidated and politically upgraded trade unionism. In a society emerging from dictatorship, the collective organization of labor was not simply a tool for negotiation, but a pillar of democratic restoration.
The General Confederation of Greek Labor (GSEE) was founded long before 1974, in distant 1918. However, after 1974, the framework within which modern Greek trade unionism operated was formed. The first post-dictatorship period was a period of mobilization. Strikes had social significance, collective agreements produced tangible results and trade unionism functioned as a space for politicization.
The rise of PASOK to power in 1981 gave it some institutional substance. Law 1264 in 1982 made unions a key pillar of democratic balance. However, PASOK, on the one hand, expressed and strengthened union representation, but on the other, it integrated trade unionism into a logic of state management. Party-trade union interdependence was created, which offered stability and access to power. That integration came at a cost: The professionalization of leadership, the dependence on institutional and EU resources, and the long stay at the same posts shaped a unionism that was more managerial than kinetic.
The case of GSEE head Giannis Panagopoulos reflects the gradual delegitimization of the entire union model after 1974 and has now reached its limits
The 1990s and European convergence consolidated this shift. In an environment of modernization, unionism functioned as an interlocutor, but not as a counterweight. Prolonged terms of office, mechanisms of association, loose control and limited accountability shaped the image of a closed power circle.
Then came the crisis, which overturned fundamental balances in relation to collective demands. With labor rights shrinking dramatically during the bailouts, the unions failed to put together a convincing strategy of resistance or, at least, an alternative proposal. Repeated 24-hour strikes without tangible results reinforced the sense of symbolic, rather than substantive, action. The social influence of unions decreased and was never recovered, and their credibility was damaged. The post-political model had learned to function in a system where negotiation produced results. When the system collapsed, that strategy collapsed with it.
In this context, the case of GSEE head Giannis Panagopoulos is not necessarily an indication of general illegality. It is an indication of institutional fatigue; the image of a closed system that reinforces the distance between leadership and base. PASOK, which largely shaped the post-political imprint of unionism and the party-union relationship, is in a quandary: The crisis of the unions coincides with its own.
The issue, however, is not about parties, but about institutions. Can Greek trade unionism strengthen transparency, limit multi-year terms, open its structures to workers who do not belong to the old industrial core? It can represent the precarious, digital, fragmented labor of the 21st century, moving from a model of integration to a model of renewal. Otherwise, GSEE risks remaining an institutional player without social content – and then the void will be filled by other, probably worse, players.
Democracies weaken when their institutions cease to be renewed. The post-1974 democracy built institutions that supported stability. Fifty years on, the challenge is not to dismantle, but to reform. That is why the Panagopoulos case reflects the gradual delegitimization of the entire union model after 1974 and has now reached its limits. It concerns whether trade unionism can look in the mirror and change before it’s too late.
* Kostis Kornetis is assistant professor of contemporary history at the Autonomous University of Madrid.