Ahead of the election, the working week was reduced to 40 hours

In an attempt to overturn the first-round lead secured by his opponent, far-right Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, Lula strongly backed an amendment that would give some workers an extra day off each week.

Bolsonaro, by contrast, opposed the change for months but reversed course on Tuesday, saying "most Brazilian workers" supported him. On Wednesday, he joined 75 senators who approved the reform passed by the lower house in May. Only one senator voted against it: Hamilton Mouran, former vice president of Jair Bolsonaro, Flavio's father.

The constitutional amendment bans a six-day working week, which currently employs 16 million people, and reduces the maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours for more than 30 million workers. The changes are expected to affect mainly retail workers, restaurants and hotels, most of whom are low-paid - one of the groups from which Lula has lost the most support since the 2022 election, when he defeated Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula celebrated the adoption of the amendment, writing on social media: Canceling the 6x1 schedule is more than just changing working hours. This means more time to live, relax, socialize with family, watch your children grow up, take care of yourself and enjoy life.

Political analyst Victor Escobar said the change “could really benefit Lula’s re-election campaign.”.

Lula's party has spent months persuading the Senate to put the motion to a vote, and many believed that after the far-right won a landslide victory last week and won a sizable majority in Congress in 2027, the Senate would no longer vote on the issue. But Senate Chairman Davi Alcolumbre, whose relationship with Lula was at times uneasy, put the issue to a vote.

Flavio Bolsonaro's party had considered blocking it, but polls showed that more than 70% of the general population and more than half of the senator's voters voted for the change. In May, Bolsonaro said the proposal could lead to "mass unemployment," and employers' associations opposed to the changes have repeatedly made the argument. The senator voted remotely during a campaign in the south of the country.

Even after changing his stance, Bolsonaro said on Tuesday that he "supports something even better," referring to an alternative proposal he has long championed that pay would be based on actual hours worked. The Folha newspaper said he had told business leaders that if elected he would review some parts of the new amendment, as several allied senators also said during Wednesday's vote.

Despite its approval, none of the changes will take effect until the second round of elections, which will take place on October 25. After the Senate president unveils it, it will be 60 days before the six-day working week is abolished, with the maximum working week reduced from 44 to 42 hours and then to 40 hours after another 14 months.

But Escobar said his approval could already benefit Lula: “It will affect the economic well-being of voters when they vote; they may feel relieved to change their work schedule.”.