WorldLatin America
Brazil's Senate votes to cut the working week to 40 hours, ten days before the runoff
The constitutional amendment ends the six-days-on, one-day-off schedule without any cut in pay. President Lula has made it a pillar of a re-election race he is narrowly trailing.
Key points
- Senators voted 75 to 1 to cut the maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours.
- The change ends the 6x1 schedule and gives formal workers two days off a week with no pay cut.
- Lula faces Flávio Bolsonaro in a 25 October runoff, with the latest Quaest poll putting him two points behind.
Brazil’s Senate has voted to shorten the country’s maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours and scrap the six-days-on, one-day-off routine that millions of formal workers live by, handing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a major win days before he faces voters again.
The constitutional amendment passed by 75 votes to one on Wednesday night. Formal-sector workers will get two days off a week instead of one, with no cut in pay. About 37 million people are expected to benefit.
Lula, who made the measure a legislative priority and a pillar of his campaign, called it “more than a change in working hours”, saying it meant more time to live, to rest and to be with family.
A cross-party vote
The only senator to vote against was Hamilton Mourão, the retired general who served as vice-president under Jair Bolsonaro. Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s son and Lula’s opponent in the runoff, had voiced reservations but voted in favour, logging in remotely from Porto Alegre.
His Liberal Party, the largest in Congress, had backed an alternative proposal and has not ruled out seeking changes in the next legislature. Business groups and some opposition politicians have warned about the cost to employers and the effect on productivity.
The Chamber of Deputies had already approved the text in two rounds, and the Senate’s constitution committee kept that version unchanged on 2 September so that it could be promulgated quickly. The cut is phased: the limit falls to 42 hours two months after promulgation and to 40 hours a year after that.
From a TikTok video to the Senate floor
The campaign began in 2023 with a TikTok video by Rick Azevedo, who spoke about the exhaustion of working six days a week. He went on to found the Life Beyond Work movement and was elected a federal deputy in the first round of voting on 4 October. In the lower house the cause was championed by Erika Hilton of the Socialism and Liberty Party.
What it means for the runoff
The vote lands ten days before the 25 October runoff. Lula finished the first round nearly two points behind, and the latest Quaest poll gives Flávio Bolsonaro 47 per cent to Lula’s 45.
Lula has also promised 5,000 reais to every micro-entrepreneur. The two candidates meet in a televised debate on the Band network on Sunday, the same day Bolsonaro has called his supporters on to São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista.