Brazil Cuts Workweek to 40 Hours With No Pay Cut for 37 Million

Brazil's Senate voted 75-1 on Wednesday to cut the country's constitutional workweek from 44 to 40 hours without reducing pay, extending the change to more than 37 million workers. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to sign the amendment into law next week. The margin matters: 75 of 81 senators backed it in two rounds of voting, with the sole dissent from former Vice President Hamilton Mourao, who served under Jair Bolsonaro.

The vote lands 10 days before Brazil's Oct. 25 presidential runoff, and the timing is no accident. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre scheduled the decision between the first and second rounds of the election, a sequence that benefits the incumbent. After the result, Alcolumbre told a leading senator from Lula's Workers' Party: "Didn't I say this was going to work?"

Lula framed the win in personal terms. "Today is a day to celebrate a historic achievement for millions of workers," he said in a statement. "This means having more time to live, rest, be with family, watch your children grow up, take care of yourself, and enjoy life. Those who work so hard to build Brazil also deserve to have time to live."

What does the amendment actually change?

The constitutional amendment sets a 40-hour weekly limit and guarantees two rest days, with no salary reduction. Businesses get 14 months to comply — and that transition period was the fight. Many business leaders and lawmakers had pushed for a gradual phase-in stretching 10 years. They got 14 months instead.

For employers, that's a compressed timeline to restructure shifts and absorb what many Bolsonaro allies warned would be rising costs of living under the new schedule. For formal-sector workers, it's four hours back per week at full pay. One group sees no change at all: freelancers, delivery drivers and others in the shadow economy remain outside the new rules.

Why did Bolsonaro cave?

Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula's opponent in the runoff, opposed the measure until early this week — then voted for it remotely while campaigning in southern Brazil. Analysts and politicians say his Senate allies stopped blocking the popular move precisely so he wouldn't be damaged in a neck-to-neck race. Bolsonaro beat Lula by 2.2 million votes in the first round, but recent polls show widespread public support for the shorter workweek despite business opposition.

The reversal came with a hedge. Hours after announcing his support on Tuesday, Bolsonaro told business owners that the new Congress — where his party could reach a simple majority with allied parties come February — could review the measure, according to local newspaper O Globo. He had previously advocated a flexible payment-by-the-hour regime and individual negotiations between employees and employers, and had repeatedly called the legislation election-motivated.

An electoral measure, by design?

Lula's government has been working on the proposal since last year, but it arrives as the centerpiece of a broader pre-runoff blitz. Recent days have brought:

• New fuel tax cuts and extensions of existing subsidies
• A pledge to pardon federal debts of more than 3.6 million small businesses
• A block on cellphone signals around prisons
• Increased welfare payments for university students

The workweek change is regarded as the pinnacle of those initiatives. "Any change made in an election year can be considered an electoral measure," said Carla Beni, an economist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think-tank and university.

The pressure wasn't only institutional. Approval of the reduced workweek was a theme in dozens of pro-Lula protests nationwide since last week, with street celebrations in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo after the Senate vote. "We needed the people out on the streets," said Lunna Normande, 23, at a protest of hundreds in Rio. "We will continue to be on the streets until this inhumane work week ends."

A regional shift, with one holdout

Brazil is joining a Latin American wave rather than starting one. Chile passed its 40-Hour Law in 2023, effective last year for all workers under its Labor Code without pay cuts. Colombia enacted a 42-hour workweek. In February, Mexican lawmakers approved President Claudia Sheinbaum's plan to trim the 48-hour workweek gradually to 40 hours by 2030. Those precedents emboldened Brazilian labor groups to demand the same.

Argentina is the outlier. Under President Javier Milei, the country has bucked the trend and may extend its 48-hour workweek.

What does this change for practitioners watching Brazil? Multinationals with Brazilian payroll now have a hard 14-month clock on labor-cost restructuring — and, if Bolsonaro wins on Oct. 25, a credible possibility that a new Congress reopens the deal in February.