Brazil approves 40-hour week and ban on six-day schedules

Brazil's Senate has approved a constitutional amendment cutting the maximum working week from 44 hours to 40 hours and banning six-day work schedules.

Senators voted on Wednesday, October 14, after the proposal cleared the lower house in May. It was approved by 75 senators, with only one vote against, from Hamilton Mourão, the former vice-president to Jair Bolsonaro. Senate president Davi Alcolumbre put the amendment to a vote. Reuters

The change ends the 6x1 scale, a schedule of six workdays followed by one day of rest now worked by 16 million people in Brazil. In total, the reform affects more than 30 million workers, according to The Guardian.

The approved text sets a limit of eight hours per day and 40 hours per week, with two days of rest, applying to employment contracts already in force. The reduction will occur without a reduction in wages and through a transition period. The final reduction to 40 hours will take effect one year after publication, in mid-October 2027.

The vote came less than two weeks before Brazil's presidential runoff between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro. Reuters described Senate approval as a win for Lula ahead of that vote.

Flávio Bolsonaro had opposed the measure before reversing course. By October 13, he backed ending the six-day week, saying the majority of Brazilian workers supported it.

The proposal began as a TikTok movement called Life Beyond Work. It then moved through Congress as a constitutional amendment, a change to Brazil's constitution that requires votes in two rounds in each chamber. Senate records show it passed through successive discussion sessions in the plenary in early October before the final votes.