Brazil's Senate Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) votes on Wednesday (2) on a constitutional amendment to end the 6x1 work schedule, in which employees work six days and rest one each week. The session is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. and includes other agenda items, according to Folha de S.Paulo. The bill cuts the working week from 44 to 40 hours, keeps the 8-hour daily limit and guarantees two paid rest days a week, with no salary cut, one of them preferably Sunday.
The bill's rapporteur, Senator Omar Aziz (PSD-AM), said on Tuesday (1) that he will not change the text approved by the Chamber of Deputies. "We will vote. We have the numbers to pass it in the CCJ," he said. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre (União Brasil-AP) cleared the matter for the agenda; according to g1, he has moved closer to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in recent weeks. Aziz said he will request a special calendar and warned that the opposition, which wants to avoid the vote, "will use the internal rules" to slow the bill down.
What changes in hours, rest days and pay
Under the text's timeline, the working week drops from 44 to 42 hours two months after enactment and reaches 40 hours twelve months later. The end of the 6x1 schedule, with at least two rest days a week, takes effect 60 days after enactment. Folha reports that clauses in collective agreements based on the current schedule lapse 60 days after the amendment is published, and that the PEC creates a "super-employee" category, exempt from working-hour controls for salaries of R$ 21,188.88 or more. Companies that open seven days a week must set up shift rotation; Sunday work without a compensating day off must be paid double. Labor lawyer Jorge Soares, of the firm IW Melcheds Advogados, told g1 that keeping pay while cutting hours raises the cost of each hour worked by about 10%.
Aziz argues for approval without changes. His report notes that the 44-hour week has been in force for 30 years and cites data from Ipea, a federal research institute, showing that the 6x1 schedule is concentrated among workers with lower pay and less schooling.
"Long working hours are not evenly spread across the productive structure: they fall disproportionately on workers with lower incomes and less schooling. Reducing them is, in this exact measure, an act of distributive justice, and not only of labor policy," the rapporteur wrote.
Business criticism and next steps
Employers' associations want a longer transition and question changing work rules through a constitutional amendment. A survey by CNI, the national industry confederation, found that 70% of manufacturers expect a drop in competitiveness and 68% expect a drop in productivity. "We need a broader view, a more careful and deeper discussion, so we do not decide in the heat of an election year," said Rodrigo Hugueney do Amaral Mello, labor coordinator at CNA, the agriculture and livestock confederation, during a hearing in the Chamber. Elizabeth Regina Nunes Guedes, president of Confenen, which represents private schools, said: "Talking about cutting working hours, keeping pay and doing no objective planning is writing poetry, not labor policy. We need to keep our schools running." The approved text says a future supplementary law will set specific rules for individual microentrepreneurs, microenterprises and small businesses, provided employment levels are maintained.
The bill began as PEC 221/2019, sponsored by Deputy Reginaldo Lopes (PT-MG), and absorbed PEC 8/2025, by Deputy Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP), which called for a 4x3 schedule. The Chamber passed it in two rounds, 472 to 22 and 461 to 19. If it clears the CCJ, it goes to the Senate floor, where a constitutional amendment needs two rounds of voting and three fifths of the chamber, or 49 of the 81 senators, according to Folha. Enactment falls to the Senate presidency, not the president of the republic. Aziz said he will request a special calendar to speed up the vote.