Overview
- The government announced on Monday that publication of the implementing decree will wait until President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returns from COP31 and a state visit, with his return scheduled for November 16.
- Draft rules set to be signed after his return will let unions and employers define how the two weekly rest days are distributed and use a five‑days-on, two‑days-off (5x2) model as the default if no agreement exists.
- The constitutional amendment that ends the 6x1 was promulgated in mid‑October and requires weekly hours to drop from 44 to 42 on December 16 and to 40 one year later while protecting salaries from cuts.
- Employer groups are alarmed because collective agreements that do not conform will automatically lose validity, creating a short window for renegotiation and prompting a related Supreme Court hearing.
- Ministry officials say the decree will allow negotiated exceptions for regimes that run 24 hours or use patterns like 12x36, and the next steps to watch are the text Lula signs on return and sectoral bargaining outcomes.