Brazil Senate Approves 40-Hour Workweek Ahead of Runoff

More than 37 million formal-sector workers in Brazil will see their maximum weekly hours drop from 44 to 40 without a reduction in pay after the Federal Senate overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment Wednesday, injecting a volatile new variable into the Oct. 25 presidential runoff.

The measure passed 75-1 in both required voting rounds. Hamilton Mourao, who served as vice president under Jair Bolsonaro, cast the lone dissenting vote. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to sign the amendment into law next week, triggering a 14-month compliance window for businesses — a timeline significantly shorter than the decade-long phase-in sought by industry groups during negotiations.

Under Brazil’s Consolidation of Labor Laws, the standard workweek has remained at 44 hours since the 1988 Constitution was enacted. The new amendment mandates two rest days per week and preserves existing wage levels, effectively raising the hourly compensation rate for employees currently working the maximum schedule. Freelancers, gig-economy delivery drivers and other participants in Brazil’s vast informal economy remain outside the amendment’s protections, a structural limitation that leaves millions of workers unaffected.

The political timing of the vote reflects calculated maneuvering by both campaigns. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre scheduled the final deliberations between the first and second rounds of the election. Flávio Bolsonaro, who led Lula by 2.2 million votes in the first round on Oct. 5, reversed his long-standing opposition to the shorter workweek on Tuesday. He voted remotely while campaigning in southern Brazil, and his Senate allies ceased blocking the legislation once polls indicated widespread public support threatened his runoff chances.

Hours after publicly backing the amendment, Bolsonaro privately told business owners that a future Congress — where his allied parties could command a simple majority beginning in February — might revisit the measure, according to the newspaper O Globo. Throughout the campaign, he had advocated for flexible hourly payment structures and individual employer-employee negotiations rather than a statutory cap.

Lula framed the amendment as a generational labor achievement. “Those who work so hard to build Brazil also deserve to have time to live,” he said following the vote. His administration accelerated a broader slate of pre-election initiatives alongside the workweek push, including new fuel tax cuts, extensions of existing subsidies, increased welfare payments for university students, cellphone signal jamming around prisons and debt pardons for more than 3.6 million small businesses owing federal obligations.

Protests organized by labor unions and pro-Lula groups over the past week incorporated the workweek reduction as a central demand, culminating in street celebrations in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo immediately after the Senate tally.

The Brazilian overhaul aligns with a rapid regional shift in labor standards across Latin America, though implementation strategies vary sharply. Chile enacted its 40-Hour Law in 2023, applying the reduced schedule universally to all workers covered by its Labor Code without wage cuts. Colombia recently legislated a transition toward a 42-hour maximum. Mexico moved in February to trim its 48-hour workweek gradually, targeting a 40-hour limit by 2030 under President Claudia Sheinbaum’s proposal. Argentina represents the regional outlier; President Javier Milei’s administration has signaled intentions to maintain or potentially extend its current 48-hour standard.

Economists caution that the compressed 14-month adoption period in Brazil presents distinct challenges compared to neighboring countries that opted for multi-year transitions. Carla Beni, an economist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, noted that any major policy shift implemented during an election cycle inherently carries electoral implications, regardless of how long the groundwork was laid.

Business leaders opposing the amendment have consistently warned that maintaining current salaries for fewer hours will increase operational costs, which they expect to pass through to consumers via higher prices for goods and services.

Lula signed the constitutional amendment into law Monday.