On Wednesday night, the Brazilian Senate approved Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 221/2019, which ends the 6×1 work schedule (six days on, one day off) without a corresponding salary adjustment. This is a victory for the Brazilian working class in the face of precarious employment and the rise of the Far Right.

The proposed legislation establishes two paid days of rest per week for workers with formal employment (this does not apply to those in the informal sector or self-employed workers). Following the vote, the workweek must be reduced to 42 hours within the next two months and to 40 hours a year later, without any salary reduction. The only remaining step is for the senate president, Davi Alcolumbre, to enact the legislation.

It Took One Vote for the Right Wing to Back Down

The only dissenting vote came from Senator Hamilton Mourão, former vice president under Jair Bolsonaro.  After much maneuvering against this amendment the Liberal Party (the far-right party of the Bolsonaros) and the rest of the Far Right were unable to maintain their opposition and voted in favor as a bloc.

Between 70 and 80 percent of the population backs the reduction of the workweek because they can no longer bear living without time for rest, family, and leisure. Faced with such overwhelming consensus, openly opposing it would have had a political cost that the right wing was unwilling to pay.

However, the Far Right did not abandon its anti-worker agenda. Flávio Bolsonaro did not even attend the session and voted remotely at the direction of his party, while sending a signal to business leaders that if elected president he would include modifications to the new law. Any of his claims to support the reduction of the workweek are totally false.

The Right’s plan is to promote the so-called Flexible Hours PEC. This proposal effectively nullifies the end of the 6×1 work schedule and establishes a “flexible” workday in which the employer decides how many days and hours each person works, under the guise of “freedom of negotiation.”

This is the logic behind labor reform and the law on unrestricted outsourcing, which the right wing wants to deepen by relying on its electoral strength.

Beyond the Ballot Boxes

During his years in office, Lula never proposed repealing the labor reform that stripped workers of their rights, a reform passed after the 2016 institutional coup under Temer’s government. Nor did he propose reducing the workday, despite the popular Brazilian movement VAT, “Life Beyond Work” (Vida Além do Trabalho in Portuguese).
Lula’s recent support for the law known as “the end of the 6×1” was primarily driven by his desire to gain votes in the second round of Brazil’s general election. This was the same motive that led Bolsonaro’s supporters to back the law: to prevent Flávio from losing votes.

The right wing emerged strengthened from the first round and aims to use that capital to attack workers’ rights. But yesterday’s vote reveals something that election results alone cannot fully explain: even a force that wins at the polls can be forced to accept just demands when pressure from workers and social support make them unavoidable.

Electoral victories are circumstantial and can be reversed. A victory won through the strength of the working class, which forces the Right to vote against its own platform, changes the balance of power. It is also a counter-point to those who believe that the only way to stop the Far Right is to wait for the next election.

This approval is not an end point. It is a stepping stone to organize the fight against all the laws that attacked workers’ rights: first and foremost, for the repeal of the labor reform, the pension reform, and the law on unrestricted outsourcing. The same force that secured yesterday’s vote is the same force that can defeat Flávio Bolsonaro and the Far Right in all their plans.

This article was first published in Portuguese at Esquerda Diário on October 15, 2026.

The post Brazil’s Working Class Forced the Senate to Reduce the Working Schedule appeared first on Left Voice.

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