Brazil ends the 6x1 schedule and cuts the workweek to 40 hours
Amendment 141 brings two days off from mid-December and a 40-hour week by late 2027, with no pay cut.
Brazil has left behind the 6x1 schedule, six days of work for one day off. Congress promulgated Constitutional Amendment 141 on Friday, Oct. 16, at a ceremonial session with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The rule sets five days of work and two days of rest, one of them preferably a Sunday.
It also lowers the weekly cap from 44 to 40 hours with no change in pay. But almost nothing changes yet: the calendar is left in the hands of employers.
| When | What applies |
|---|---|
| About 60 days after publication (around Dec. 15) | Two days of rest and a maximum of 42 hours a week |
| 14 months after publication (around December 2027) | A cap of 40 hours a week |
The Ministry of Labor and Employment gives a sense of the scale. Of the 44.7 million workers whose hours are on record, about 14.9 million are still on 6x1. Another 38.6 million work more than 40 hours a week, and 37.2 million work 44.
Exceptions and escape valves
Hours for federal, state and municipal public servants do not change. The rules on working time and its monitoring also do not reach people with a university degree who earn at least 2.5 times the RGPS ceiling, the general social security regime, although they keep their weekly day of rest.
During the transition, collective agreements may lengthen the daily workday to reach 42 hours, as long as the two days of rest are respected. Rest can be made up within the month, averaging two days a week with at least one in every seven. Clauses that clash with the amendment stop being valid after 60 days.
Lula called for balance at the ceremony: nobody wants a company to go under, he said, but nobody wants "workers dying from lack of rest" either. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre spoke of a "right to time to live and a right to dignity." Lula also called it a conquest that "came out of the streets."
Before promulgation, the full Senate approved the text on Oct. 14 in two rounds, by 75 votes to one; the lone vote against was Sen. Hamilton Mourão's. The lower house had passed it on May 27. The vote came 11 days before the presidential runoff, in which Lula faces Flávio Bolsonaro, and Bolsonaro's PL voted in favor.
The rapporteur, Omar Aziz, rejected an amendment that would have excluded sectors with workweeks of 40 hours or less, though he acknowledged that the particulars of some sectors will be discussed in the coming months. The Senate also mentions a possible complementary law with adaptation measures for micro and small businesses, conditioned on keeping jobs.
Brazil is Latin America's largest economy, and its reform is no longer a proposal: it cuts hours in stages and leaves pay untouched. The first test comes in mid-December, when companies have to reorganize shifts to give two days of rest.
