A consistent majority of 71% of Brazilians support the end of , according to a recent . Under this model, the worker is subject to six days of work and one day off per week. The result is positive at a time when reactionary voices are rising to defend a type of retrograde labor arrangement, which should shame the country.
This is the case of the president of the Bolsonaro party, governor of.
In , the parliamentarian said that “too much idleness is bad” and that a reduction in working hours would put Brazilians out of work. According to him, “the more work, the more prosperity.” With less working time, he continued, the worker would be “more exposed to drugs and gambling.” “It could be the opposite. Instead of leisure, it could be evil. What is the leisure of a poor person in a community? Or in a hinterland in the Northeast?”
After the negative repercussion of these deplorable considerations, the deputy issued a lame apology. Pereira’s vision is not so strange even to supposedly more modern and sophisticated sectors of the business community. Historical reactions to proposals for labor rights, since pressure to end slavery, are recurrent.
In addition to the characteristic alarmism of the type “companies are going to fail”, we have the well-known considerations about the need to increase labor productivity.
Sometimes one gets the impression that workers practice their craft in a vacuum and not in corporations. It is clear that the equation cannot be reduced to labor. If companies do not invest in innovation and maintain outdated equipment and routines, increasing productivity becomes difficult, even though someone may still be tempted to believe that with a few more “lashes” things can move forward.
There are also arguments based on studies. These at least lead us to a theoretically more rational discussion. A reduction in working hours to 40 hours a week, experts say, would bring practically no losses. A cut to 36 hours could result in a reduction of up to 7.4% of GDP… Really? Given that the economy often escapes scientific attempts to make it exact – and also given that experts often get simpler estimates wrong –, I reserve the right to be cautious about this type of projection.
The reduction to 40 hours a week is a matter, in my opinion, that should be out of the question. Not only in my opinion, considering the Datafolha research. There’s nothing to discuss. Companies need to improve routines, methods and technologies to absorb the supposed cost. And society may be willing to pay for it, within reason.
In the case of the 36-hour day, a more in-depth debate would be desirable and fruitful.
It is worth remembering, however, that weekly, like most of the G20. Canada has the lowest average, with 32.1 hours per week, followed by Australia, Germany and France, with averages of 32.3, 34.2 and 35.9. There are studies and experiments in Europe of even more flexible schemes. Fortunately, we have a mobilization for change among us.
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