Brazil Ends Six-Day Work Week Days Before Lula-Bolsonaro Run-Off

Brazil’s Congress has approved a constitutional amendment that cuts the working week from 44 hours to 40 and gives employees two days off a week without reducing their pay, the BBC reported.

Senators passed it on Wednesday by 75 votes to one. The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, had already approved it in May. The BBC called it the biggest overhaul of workers’ rights since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1988. It estimated that more than 30 million workers will benefit.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva championed the measure, and it passed less than two weeks before the October 25 presidential run-off. Lula’s backers hope it will help him close the gap with his right-wing rival, Flávio Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro won the first round with 47 percent of the vote to Lula’s 45.2 percent. Neither reached the 50 percent of valid votes needed to avoid a run-off.

Bolsonaro, a senator and the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, had opposed the proposal and called it an “opportunistic” attempt by Lula to win working-class voters. He changed his position on Tuesday and voted yes. “Most Brazilian workers want to see the end of the six-day workweek, so I’m going to vote in favour of ending it.”

Before the change, he had said employers and employees should agree on schedules, and not have them set by a constitutional amendment. Lula called Bolsonaro’s reversal “electoral opportunism” and welcomed the vote on social media.

The changes will be phased in over more than a year. After a two-month grace period, the working week will first drop to 42 hours, then to 40 at a later stage.