Senator Omar Aziz (PSD-AM) delivered on Thursday (27) a favorable report on the constitutional amendment (PEC) that ends Brazil's 6x1 work schedule, in which employees work six days for every one day off. The report was presented to the Senate's Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) and keeps the text approved by the Chamber of Deputies on May 27, according to G1.
By making no changes, Aziz met a request from the Lula government and cleared the way for Congress to enact the amendment directly if the Senate approves it as is. Any modification would force the text back to the lower house, making approval before the October elections harder. Congress has only one more voting week, from August 31 to September 4, as announced by Senate president Davi Alcolumbre (União Brasil-AP).
What the amendment does
The proposal cuts the maximum workweek from 44 to 40 hours and guarantees two weekly rest days with no pay cut. Preferably, one of those days must be Sunday. The transition is gradual: within two months the workweek drops to 42 hours, and within one year it reaches 40. According to Agência Senado, the Senate's news service, the text includes exceptions for workers under differentiated regimes and for higher-paid employees with a college degree.
In his report, Aziz noted that the 44-hour week has been in force for 30 years and cited data from the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), a federal think tank, showing that the 6x1 schedule falls hardest on lower-income and less-educated workers. "The prolonged workday is not, therefore, a phenomenon neutrally distributed across the productive structure: it falls disproportionately on lower-income and less-educated workers. Reducing it is, in this exact measure, a measure of distributive justice, and not only of labor policy", the rapporteur wrote.
Rejected amendments
Senators filed 12 amendments to the proposal. Aziz rejected all of them. They include three proposals by senator Izalci Lucas (PL-DF) to keep the 44-hour week, and amendments by senators Hermer Klann (PL-SC) and Oriovisto Guimarães (PSDB-PR) to stretch the transition period to up to four years. The PL, the party of former president Jair Bolsonaro, opposes ending the 6x1 schedule. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), a presidential candidate, co-signed an alternative amendment establishing hourly pay with flexible hours. That text is stalled in the Senate.
The bill moved forward after a meeting between president Lula, Alcolumbre and Chamber of Deputies speaker Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB) on Wednesday (26) at the Alvorada Palace, the presidential residence. At the meeting, ending the 6x1 schedule entered Congress's priority list. "One thing I can guarantee: we will deliberate on these matters during the week of concentrated effort, because it will be the last week [of voting] we have before the elections", Alcolumbre said, according to Agência Senado.
The next step is the CCJ vote, scheduled for next Wednesday (September 2), according to Folha de S.Paulo. After that, the amendment must be approved in two rounds on the Senate floor, with a regimental five-working-day interval between them. Alcolumbre has not guaranteed a floor vote next week. Lula allies are pressing for both rounds to be held on the same day and argue that the regimental deadlines can be set aside if there is political will, G1 reported.