Brazil cuts work week to 40 hours in win for Lula ahead of runoff

Congress approves constitutional amendment that bans six-day workweeks, which could effect up to 30 million

Brazil’s congress has approved a constitutional amendment to shorten the working week to a maximum of 40 hours, a move that could affect 30 million workers and that will hand a political victory to the leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of the presidential runoff in under two weeks.

Bolsonaro, by contrast, spent months opposing the change but reversed course on Tuesday, saying “the majority of Brazilian workers” supported it. On Wednesday, he joined 75 senators who approved the reform, which passed the lower house in May.

Only one senator voted against it: Hamilton Mourão, former vice-president to Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio’s father.

The change is expected to affect mainly workers in retail, restaurants and hotels, most of them low-paid – one of the groups which Lula lost the most support from since the 2022 election, when he defeated Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula celebrated the amendment’s passing, writing on social media “ending the 6x1 schedule is about more than changing working hours. It means more time to live, rest, be with family, watch your children grow up, look after yourself and enjoy life.”

The proposal began as a TikTok movement called Life Beyond Work, founded by a pharmacy assistant who entered politics after its success and later was embraced by Lula.

But Senate president Davi Alcolumbre, whose relationship with Lula has at times been rocky, put it to a vote.

In May, Bolsonaro said the proposal could cause “mass unemployment”, an argument employers’ associations opposed to the change have repeatedly made.

Even after changing his position, Bolsonaro said on Tuesday that he “supports something even better,” referring to an alternative proposal he had long advocated in which pay would be based on the hours actually worked. The Folha newspaper reported that he told business leaders that, if elected, he would review parts of the new amendment, a point several allied senators also made during Wednesday’s vote.

Despite its approval, none of the changes will take effect before the runoff on 25 October. After the Senate president promulgates it, a 60-day period will follow before six-day workweeks are abolished and the maximum working week is reduced from 44 to 42 hours, then to 40 hours after a further 14 months.

Marilane Oliveira Teixeira, a professor and researcher at a study centre at the University of Campinas who has spent months examining the possible impacts of the change, said there was no shortage of evidence showing how harmful having only one day off is to workers.