Brazil cuts maximum working week to 40 hours in constitutional amendment
Brazil's congress has approved a constitutional amendment cutting the maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours and banning six-day workweeks, affecting over 30 million workers, days before the presidential runoff between President Lula and far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro on 25 October.
Brazil cuts maximum working week to 40 hours in constitutional amendment
Brazil's congress has passed a constitutional amendment establishing a 40-hour work week Brazil will write into its constitution, ending the country's 44-hour ceiling and outlawing six-day schedules in a move that touches the lives of over 30 million workers. The senate vote came days before the presidential runoff on 25 October, in which President Lula faces far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who led the first round.
What the amendment changes
The reform bans six-day workweeks, a schedule currently worked by 16 million people, while cutting the maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours. Congress approved it with overwhelming numbers on both sides of the legislature.
- The lower house passed the amendment in May
- 75 senators approved the reform on Wednesday
- Only one senator voted against it: Hamilton Mourão, former vice-president to Jair Bolsonaro
- More than 30 million workers are covered by the change
The new rules do not take effect immediately. A 60-day period will follow promulgation, after which six-day workweeks are abolished and the maximum working week drops to 42 hours; it falls to 40 hours after a further 14 months.
Bolsonaro's reversal and the Senate vote
The senate vote was far from guaranteed. Many believed the Senate would not vote at all after the far right's victory last week secured a broad congressional majority in 2027, but Senate president Davi Alcolumbre put the amendment to a vote anyway.
Flávio Bolsonaro had opposed the change for months before reversing course on Tuesday, saying "the majority of Brazilian workers" supported it. His switch came despite his own earlier warnings: in May, he said the proposal could cause "mass unemployment", an argument employers' associations also made.
Public opinion was running strongly the other way. Polls showed the change had more than 70% of the general population behind it, and more than half of Bolsonaro's own voters backed it.
On Wednesday the senator joined the 75 senators who approved the reform, voting remotely while campaigning in the country's south. According to Folha, he told business leaders that, if elected, he would review parts of the new amendment; allied senators made the same point.
A win for Lula before the runoff
Lula has strongly championed the amendment, and the timing places it squarely in the runoff campaign, which is under two weeks away. Days before the vote, he announced a package of benefits including debt relief for microentrepreneurs and published a letter to evangelical Christians.
In that letter, he stressed his commitment "to ensuring that everyone has two days off a week, because life is not just about work". He celebrated the amendment's approval on social media, writing that "ending the 6x1 schedule is about more than changing working hours. It means more time to live" - more time, he wrote, to rest and be with family.
Victor Escobar, a researcher at the Laboratory of Parties, Elections and Comparative Politics, saw a political upside for the president in the timing. He said the change could indeed benefit Lula's re-election campaign, and that it will speak to how voters feel economically when they cast their ballot, since voters can feel more relieved with a change in their working schedule.
Still, he described the race as "somewhat tangled, tied, with some degree of advantage for Bolsonaro", while calling it a very open election.
Who works the 6x1 schedule
The amendment is expected to affect mainly workers in retail, restaurants and hotels, most of them low-paid - a group where Lula has lost support since 2022. The proposal itself began as a TikTok movement called Life Beyond Work, founded by a pharmacy assistant who later entered politics.
Marilane Oliveira Teixeira of the University of Campinas said a single day off is harmful, especially for women who also carry unpaid domestic work.
"People who work a 6x1 schedule are practically prevented from having even a minimum level of social life"
Lilian Cristo dos Santos, a 50-year-old saleswoman in Salvador, Bahia, gets one day off and says it is not enough. "There's no time to go to the doctor, to the beach, to the salon, to look after myself," she said.
For those workers, the changes arrive only after the runoff: 60 days after promulgation the six-day week ends and the ceiling drops to 42 hours, reaching 40 hours after a further 14 months.
