By Ludmila Cassio
Justice Luiz Fux of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Brazil's highest court, has halted the judgment on the so-called 5x2 work schedule. His request, known as a destaque, removed the case from the court's virtual plenary and forces the justices to restart the analysis in an in-person session.
Before the interruption, the vote already had four justices in favor of keeping the injunction issued by Justice Flávio Dino: Dino himself, Alexandre de Moraes, Cármen Lúcia and Gilmar Mendes. With Fux's move, the tally goes back to zero, and Fux now sets the pace of the case.
What Dino's injunction says about the 42-hour week
The decision began with a request from business confederations, which wanted to postpone the start of the new working-hours rules. Dino rejected the postponement and kept the schedule, with the start set for December 16, 2026.
In practice, the weekly work limit drops from 44 to 42 hours, guaranteeing two days of paid rest. The timeline calls for another reduction in December 2027, when the cap will reach 40 hours per week.
The 8h24 rule that irritates Congress
In the initial stage, the workweek may be spread over five days, with a daily limit of 8 hours and 24 minutes. That additional time will not be treated as overtime, even without a collective agreement or union convention, until December 15.
That is precisely the point that has come under attack. The legal departments of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, the two houses of Brazil's Congress, sent submissions to the Supreme Court challenging the 8h24 workday without overtime pay. They also object to the loosening of the criteria for compensating rest days.
What changes now
With the destaque, the case leaves the virtual environment and returns to an in-person session, where it will be debated again. In the meantime, companies and workers still have no definitive answer on how the rule will work in practice, especially regarding the compensation of rest days.
Why it matters
The case affects how Brazilian companies organize working hours, with a first cut in the weekly limit scheduled for December 16, 2026. The court's decision will determine whether an injunction by a single justice, backed so far by four colleagues, stands as the rule while Congress's own legal advisers contest its details.
VDD Analysis
When an injunction begins to define how companies organize their own working day, the discussion stops being merely about labor law and becomes a dispute over who writes the country's rules. Congress exists to legislate on the subject, and the formal objections from the legal departments of the Chamber and the Senate show this is no small fight. For those who run businesses, the question is direct: what does it cost, at the sharp end, to have more rules imposed from above and less room for negotiation between the parties?
