As Brazil heads into the October 25 runoff election between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, the country stands as a crucial battleground in Washington’s strategy to contain China, as well as global geopolitics.
What does this election mean for the future of China-Brazil ties, the BRICS alliance, and independent technological sovereignty across the Global South?
Tings Chak – researcher, writer, and art director for the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research – joins Amanda Yee to break down the two competing paths for Brazil represented by Lula and Bolsonaro.
El presidente brasileño, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, mantiene firme el compromiso de alcanzar la deforestación cero en la Amazonía para el horizonte de 2030.
The reform will benefit more than 37 million formally employed workers.
On Friday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attended a ceremony at the Brazilian Congress to promulgate the constitutional amendment reducing the workweek in the country.
During his speech, Lula defended dialogue between institutions and stressed that the reduction of the workweek was made possible through negotiations between the executive branch and Parliament, an institution in which his Workers’ Party holds just 70 out of 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 9 out of 81 seats in the Senate.
“Without democracy, there is no way out. It is dictatorship,” Lula said, stressing that although the Workers’ Party does not have a parliamentary majority, it has managed to advance initiatives with the support of other political forces because “there are no good or bad votes; it is the people who are voting.”
The progressive leader reiterated that reducing the workweek — from 44 to 40 hours, with two paid days off — is a measure intended to improve workers’ living conditions. He rejected arguments that the change could harm businesses.
O dia de hoje mostra que a democracia vale a pena.
O fim da escala 6 x 1 é uma conquista civilizatória.
O que fizemos hoje foi obedecer. Obedecer à vontade de um povo que foi para as ruas e cobrou de nós: mulheres, homens, trabalhadores, adolescentes e estudantes exigiram essa… pic.twitter.com/QEdFV6I4j7
President Lula da Silva’s text reads: “Today proves that democracy is worth it. Ending the 6×1 work schedule is a civilizational achievement. What we have done today is heed a call—the will of a people who took to the streets and made a demand of us: women, men, workers, teenagers, and students all called for this measure. You have written an important chapter in our Constitution. It is now a Constitution that better reflects its citizens. Two days of rest each week mean greater dignity. Congratulations to everyone!”
In this regard, he recalled the criticism that accompanied the introduction of the year-end bonus in the early 1970s, when some conservative sectors alarmed the public by claiming that the measure would drive companies into bankruptcy.
Under Brazilian law, 60 days after the amendment’s promulgation, the five-day workweek and two-day rest period will take effect, with a maximum workweek of 42 hours. The reduction to 40 hours will be completed after another 12 months.
The measure was promulgated by Parliament President Davi Alcolumbre, with the parliamentary headquarters packed to capacity, nine days before the presidential runoff, in which Lula will face far-right Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro.
The approval of the initiative is seen as a political victory for Lula, who secured a key electoral boost in the final stretch before the runoff against his rival, who won the first round with 47% of the vote.
The measure, promoted during the campaign and strategically pushed through one week before the runoff election, had strong popular appeal because it benefits more than 37 million workers with formal employment contracts.
The results of the strategy began to emerge in polls released this week, which showed Lula narrowing the gap with Bolsonaro, who now leads him by two percentage points, although the two are technically tied.
Durante el acto institucional, el mandatario brasileño, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, calificó el 16 de octubre como un día histórico y definió la medida como una conquista de la sociedad en su conjunto.
Según detalló el jefe de Estado, el financiamiento para implementar esta gratuidad provendrá de la reasignación de los fondos presupuestarios que manejan directamente los legisladores para proyectos en sus distritos.
Declarações foram feitas durante uma sessão de perguntas na TV Globo, ocasião também em que assumiu ser ele próprio responsável pelas dificuldades e rejeição à sua Administração.
Lula criticou a proposta da oposição de reduzir a idade de responsabilidade penal para 14 anos no âmbito da discussão da PEC da Segurança Pública, que não trata sobre este tema
Datafolha puts Flávio Bolsonaro at 47% and Lula at 45% ahead of Brazil’s Oct. 25 presidential runoff.
Brazil’s presidential race has tightened ahead of the Oct. 25 runoff, with senator Flávio Bolsonaro losing two percentage points in voting intention to reach 47%, while President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stands at 45%, according to a Datafolha poll released Thursday. The two candidates are in a technical tie, with the difference falling within the survey’s margin of error.
Among valid votes, which exclude blank and invalid ballots, Bolsonaro leads Lula by 51% to 49%. The gap has narrowed from the previous week’s poll, when Bolsonaro held a 52%-48% advantage.
A separate poll published Wednesday by research firm Quaest also showed a close race, giving Bolsonaro 46% support and Lula 44%.
Text Reads: DATAFOLHA: 51% x 49% IT’S TURNING AROUND!!! Last week, the difference was 4 points. Now it’s down to 2.
The Datafolha survey found similar levels of rejection for both candidates. Some 46% of respondents said they would never vote for Bolsonaro, compared with 44% who said the same of Lula.
Views of the current government were also divided: 41% of respondents rated its performance negatively, while 35% viewed it positively.
The poll was conducted after large rallies in support of Lula took place over the weekend. However, the interviews were completed before the survey could capture any potential impact from the Senate’s approval of a proposed constitutional amendment to end the 6×1 work schedule, under which workers work six days and take one day off.
The proportion of respondents opting for blank or invalid ballots rose from 5% to 6%, while the share of undecided voters ranged between 1% and 2%.
Datafolha interviewed 2,520 people aged 16 and older across Brazil from Oct. 13 to 15. The survey has a margin of error of two percentage points and a 95% confidence level. It was registered with Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court under number BR-00466/2026. In the first round, Bolsonaro received 47.03% of the vote, compared with 45.16% for Lula.
A diez días del balotaje presidencial en Brasil, la firma Datafolha confirmó un empate técnico al situar a Flávio Bolsonaro con el 47% de la intención de voto y al presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva con el 45%, en una carrera que se aprieta hacia la segunda vuelta.
The approval of Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 221 of 2019 by the Federal Senate establishes the most profound alteration in the organization of the Brazilian work schedule since the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution. The text eliminates the model of six days of work followed by one day of rest and sets a maximum work week of 40 hours with two paid weekly rest days, without salary reduction.
Because it is a constitutional amendment, the text does not depend on the sanction or veto of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). Promulgation is the responsibility of the presiding officers of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in a joint session of the National Congress. Once promulgated and published in the Official Gazette of the Union (DOU), the amendment enters into force in a phased manner, with specific adaptation periods for companies, professional categories, and the public sector.
Transition timeline
The transition from the 44-hour work week to the definitive model of 40 hours per week and five working days followed by two days off (5×2 schedule) will occur in two main stages:
First stage (60 days after publication): Two months after the amendment is published, workers become entitled to two paid days off per week, preferably on Sundays. At the same time, the weekly working hours limit is reduced from 44 to 42 hours.
Second stage (14 months after publication): after 12 months from the implementation of the first stage, totaling 14 months from the official publication, the maximum weekly workload is definitively reduced to 40 hours, with a limit of eight hours per day.
During the 12-month period in which the 42-hour weekly limit will be in effect, employers must distribute the two extra hours across the weekdays. If distributed evenly across the five working days, the daily work schedule becomes 8 hours and 24 minutes.
Collective labor agreements and conventions may authorize daily work schedules exceeding eight hours during this transitional period to accommodate the 42-hour schedule, provided that the two weekly days off are strictly maintained.
Once the 14-month transition period is complete, any activity exceeding eight hours per day or 40 hours per week will require the payment of overtime or compensation through a time bank, mechanisms that remain permitted under labor law.
Special schedules and shifts
The new constitutional guidelines do not impose a single work schedule format for the entire market and safeguard the operation of continuous activities and essential services. Uninterrupted services, such as hospitals and health units, public safety, public transportation, urban cleaning, and surveillance, may adopt specific models for organizing and compensating working hours through collective bargaining agreements or conventions.
In these areas, the traditional 12-hour work shift followed by 36 hours of rest (12×36 shift) is not automatically eliminated by the PEC, but will need to be adapted at the negotiating table between employers’ and workers’ unions.
The reorganization of shifts must take into account the reduction of the weekly workload and the minimum rest and meal periods stipulated in the Constitution. The text also refers to future specific laws for the complementary regulation of conditions for categories with their own operational characteristics.
In the case of workers subjected to prolonged confinement, such as on offshore oil platforms, amendments proposing prior exceptions in the constitutional text were rejected by rapporteur Omar Aziz. The parliamentarian pointed out that the work regime for offshore oil workers should be subject to subsequent legal regulation.
Compensation and average monthly days off
The proposed amendment allows companies and unions to establish, exceptionally and through collective agreement or convention, work schedule compensation regimes with shifts different from the 5×2 format, including enabling the eventual continuation of the 6×1 shift schedule.
For this flexibility to be valid before the Labor Court, the proposal requires compliance with two mandatory criteria: the worked days off must be fully compensated within the same calendar month; and the worker is entitled to at least one day of rest within a maximum period of one week of service, and must reach, at the end of the month, an average of two paid days off per week.
The three express exceptions
The text approved by Congress establishes differentiated rules and specific conditions for three groups of workers and economic sectors:
Outsourced public administration workers: To safeguard the continuity of essential public services and preserve the economic and financial balance of administrative contracts, outsourced companies providing services to the State will have up to 12 months after the enactment to adjust their work schedules, instead of the general 60-day period. Contracts amended after 60 days from the publication must already comply with the new schedule. If the public authority and the service providers do not formalize an addendum within one year, the reduction in working hours for outsourced workers will automatically take effect, without a reduction in salary.
Professionals with a university degree and salaries starting at R$ 21,100: the so-called “highly qualified workers,” who are employees with a university degree and a monthly salary equal to or greater than 2.5 times the ceiling of Social Security benefits (currently R$ 21,188.87), are exempt from general daily working hour limits and timekeeping. These professionals can negotiate their schedules directly with the company, but retain the constitutional right to two days of paid weekly rest. This exception does not apply to public employees.
Brazilian labor law already provides for situations where there is no traditional control of working hours, such as in the case of employees who hold positions of trust or who work outside the company in activities where it is not possible to control their hours.
Individual micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses: the proposed constitutional amendment (PEC) stipulates that a subsequent complementary law will create transitional measures for mitigation and fiscal or credit support for individual micro-entrepreneurs, micro-enterprises, and small businesses. The granting of these benefits will be expressly conditional upon maintaining jobs and employment levels in these establishments.
Current contracts and old agreements
The application of the new work schedule to existing employment contracts is direct and immediate, requiring no formal re-hiring or termination of employment. The Constitution guarantees the principle of non-reduction of wages, prohibiting any nominal cut or proportional reduction in employee salaries or in the minimum wages of professional categories.
For workers who already work 40 hours a week or less, the amendment does not create a further reduction in weekly working hours. However, these employees will now have a guaranteed right to two paid days of weekly rest.
In the labor union sphere, clauses in previously agreed collective bargaining agreements and conventions that address working hours or weekly rest periods and are incompatible with the new constitutional parameters will lose all legal validity 60 days after the amendment is published.
Impact on the labor market
The shift to a new work schedule affects tens of millions of workers in operational, customer service, and ongoing production roles across the country.
A technical survey prepared by the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies (Dieese), based on the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), indicates that the measure will directly benefit 26.8 million workers.
The contingent consists of 22 million employees with formal contracts in the formal sector (equivalent to 54% of the country’s formal workers) and approximately 4.8 million informal workers who register weekly work schedules exceeding 40 hours.
Data from the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE) indicates that 14.8 million formal workers were directly subject to the 6×1 work schedule in 2025, while another 29.7 million were already working on the 5×2 schedule.
The scope of the change is also reflected in the profile of contracted work schedules in Brazil. Studies by the National Confederation of Commerce of Goods, Services and Tourism (CNC), structured from the Annual Social Information Report (Rais), reveal that 35.7 million workers under the CLT (Consolidation of Labor Laws), about 62% of the formal Brazilian workforce, currently work schedules ranging between 40 and 44 hours per week.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has described the approval of the Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC 221/2019) as a historic achievement. The amendment puts an end to the 44-hour workweek, establishing a new maximum of 40 hours per week, distributed over five working days and two paid rest days.
The constitutional reform—a key commitment of the Brazilian government—will directly benefit approximately 22 million workers who were previously employed under a “6×1” schedule, consisting of six days of work followed by one day of rest.
Brazil’s Senate ratified the amendment in two rounds of voting, with 75 votes in favor and one against—the latter cast by Senator Hamilton Mourão. This decision comes five months after the Chamber of Deputies initially approved the proposal, and 11 days ahead of the presidential runoff, scheduled for October 25.
Far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, who had initially opposed the measure, shifted his position and voted in favor remotely from Porto Alegre. Progressive senators, including Teresa Leitão, labeled this move as opportunistic and warned of the need to remain vigilant against any potential attempts to overturn the new regulation.
A escala 6×1 acabou! ❤️🇧🇷
Uma conquista histórica para milhões de trabalhadores e trabalhadoras, que agora terão mais tempo para descansar, estar com a família, cuidar de si e viver.
Quem constrói o Brasil todos os dias também merece tempo para viver.
The text reads, “The 6×1 schedule is over! A historic achievement for millions of workers, who will now have more time to rest, be with their family, take care of themselves, and live. Those who build Brazil every day also deserve time to live. It’s Brazil ready for more!”
Timeline and safeguards
The transition to the “5×2” model will not be immediate. According to the established timeline, 60 days after the official publication of the amendment—expected in February 2027—the maximum weekly working hours will be reduced from 44 to 42.
Subsequently, 14 months after the amendment is enacted—in December 2027—the limit will be set at 40 hours per week. The regulation also establishes a maximum daily limit of eight working hours. The constitutional text expressly prohibits any reduction in wages—whether proportional or affecting the minimum wage—across professional categories.
Furthermore, it delegates the organization of rest periods to collective bargaining agreements, prioritizing Sundays, while allowing for flexibility in sectors such as healthcare, security, and public transport.
While labor unions supported the measure, business sectors expressed their opposition, arguing that it could lead to higher costs per hour worked and the risk of a contraction in employment. The right-wing opposition also signaled its intention to revise the legislation should it gain control of the executive branch.
For individual micro-entrepreneurs and small business units, the reform provides for a supplementary law that includes state support mechanisms designed to cushion the impact of the transition and sustain formal employment targets.
Within the public administration, existing service contracts will have a period of up to 12 months to adjust their operational and financial frameworks to the new limits on working hours.
With the approval of PEC 221/2019, Brazil has begun a restructuring of its labor market aimed at reducing precarious working-hour arrangements in Latin America’s largest economy.
Premian en Washington al adalid del ajuste neoliberal en Argentina, responsable de haber destruido hasta el momento más de 370.000 empleos formales y del cierre de unas 30.000 empresas.
Proposta, popularmente chamada "fim da escala 6x1", ou seja, cinco dias de trabalho e dois de descanso, foi aprovada em dois turnos no Senado numa mesma sessão plenária e agora vai a promulgação.
Presidente brasileiro, Lula da Silva, celebrou a aprovação: "Lutamos, discutimos e pressionamos para garantir que o Congresso votasse ainda este ano o fim da 6x1!"
Brazil deploys 300 firefighters as a surge in fires worsens air pollution in Manaus and investigators probe suspected organized arson.
Brazil has launched joint operations to track down those suspected of deliberately setting fires in the Amazon rainforest, as a sharp rise in blazes blankets Manaus with toxic smoke and pushes air pollution to critical levels for the city’s 2.3 million residents.
Authorities suspect an organized network is deliberately destroying native vegetation in preserved forest areas to facilitate the illegal seizure of public land, Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco said at a news conference Wednesday. Investigators are working to identify and prosecute both those who set the fires and those suspected of directing them.
Capobianco described the situation as an “impressive display of deliberate action.” He and Jair Schmitt, head of Brazil’s environmental protection agency Ibama, cited reports of people throwing fuel-filled bottles from moving vehicles along roads and repeatedly reigniting fires in areas where firefighters had already extinguished them.
The scale of the fires has escalated sharply. Amazonas state recorded 1,608 fire hotspots in the first part of October, already exceeding the 874 registered throughout October 2025, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
September saw more than 3,700 hotspots, four times the number recorded a year earlier. Fires burned 291,060 hectares that month, 38.8% above the historical average, according to official data.
In October, the area affected has approached 220,700 hectares, 249% above the usual level, according to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Laboratory for Environmental Satellite Applications.
The government has deployed 11 aircraft and approximately 300 firefighters to the hardest-hit areas. Difficult terrain and adverse weather conditions have complicated efforts to contain the blazes. Authorities have also warned that extreme drought and high temperatures associated with El Niño are accelerating the spread of fires across northern Brazil.
Smoke from fires in Amazonas and Pará states has engulfed Manaus, where air quality has deteriorated to critical levels. Concentrations of fine particulate matter known as PM2.5 have exceeded the maximum levels recommended by the World Health Organization, increasing the risk of acute respiratory problems, particularly among children, older people and those with pre-existing medical conditions.
The Civil Police of Amazonas has opened 120 investigative proceedings into suspected environmental offenses. Investigators are using thermal drones and conducting continuous ground patrols to gather evidence and identify those responsible.
The investigations come as Brazil prepares for a presidential runoff on Oct. 25 between incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and opposition senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who received the most votes in the first round. Asked whether the fires could be politically motivated to undermine Lula’s candidacy, Capobianco said investigators were examining that possibility but stressed that the theory had yet to be substantiated.
Tras la primera vuelta electoral en Brasil, el guitarrista publicó una imagen de Lula da Silva acompañada de la inscripción “LULA26” junto a las etiquetas “#RockTheVote” y “#Brazil”.
Senadores progresistas de Brasil declararon que, en el entorno del próximo balotaje, la aprobación del final del 6x1 significa una victoria para el presidente Lula, pero también para la movilización en las calles.
Entre las fallas se cuentan interrupciones del servicio de anuncios, caídas en el recuento de visualizaciones de publicaciones favorables al presidente brasileño y bloqueos temporales de la promoción de contenidos en Instagram.
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