By EDERSON DUDA & MATHEUS SILVEIRA DE SOUZA*
The left can also play in attack
During the month of November, the fight for a reduction in working hours, led by the Vida Além do Trabalho (VAT) movement, made headlines and gained public attention. The social pressure exerted to ensure that the Constitutional Amendment Bill (PEC), presented by federal deputy Erika Hilton (PSOL/SP), would obtain the necessary signatures and be registered in the Chamber of Deputies had an effect. Furthermore, the agenda headed by Rick Azevedo (PSOL/RJ) gained support from different sectors of Brazilian society, on the left and right of the political spectrum.
The topic took over the public debate, occupying the trending topics of the old Twitter and mobilized everything from political profiles to meme pages on social media, forcing traditional media outlets to take a stand on the issue. On November 15, in several capitals of Brazil, street demonstrations took place in support of the end of the 6x1 scale. Even after all the repercussions, the Lula government gave very timid signs of support for the agenda.
As a result of the pressure exerted by the Life Beyond Work movement and society, PepsiCo workers staged a strike demanding the end of the aforementioned work shift and the adoption of a 5x2 work shift, with Saturdays and Sundays off. On December 04, a public hearing was held in the Chamber of Deputies to discuss the issue. The hearing, led by Congresswoman Erika Hilton, represents yet another tactic to pressure parliamentarians to adhere to the agenda and garner even more support from the population. According to a survey published by the newspaper Folha de S. Paul, 70% of Brazilians support the end of the 6×1 scale, with support from people on the left and the right.[I]
Such initiatives should be valued as struggles that seek to advance the discussion on the living conditions of workers in Brazil. Since the 2016 coup and the anti-social reforms carried out by the governments of Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro, such as labor and social security reforms, the worsening of the living conditions of the working class has only intensified.[ii] What the indicators have shown since then is the increase in informality, with precarious, outsourced jobs, low stability and low pay, forcing workers to take on increasingly longer working hours in order to survive.
Reduction of working hours as an internationalist struggle
The fight for shorter working hours has advanced in countries at the center of capitalism, such as Germany, France, Canada, among others, where organized workers have managed to secure working hours of less than 40 hours per week. However, it is important to emphasize that in order for workers at the center of capitalism to be able to achieve these rights, those in peripheral countries are increasingly subject to longer working hours, as a way of compensating and equalizing the rate of surplus value of total social capital.
Therefore, the precarious living conditions of workers in the global South are directly linked to the way in which the international division of labor and the globalization of capital are organized. Thus, it is clear that the fight for a reduction in working hours is not limited to the Brazilian context, but is an essentially internationalist and anti-capitalist struggle.
After a long time of acting reactively, the Brazilian left has managed to impose an offensive agenda on the public debate. After years of being on the defensive, acting to avoid losing previously acquired rights, the discussion about the end of the 6x1 work shift has managed to break through the bubble and engage in dialogue with groups not necessarily identified with the left, precisely because it touches on a material issue experienced daily by millions of Brazilian workers.
Although the last public clashes have occurred with the left playing on the opposing side, the discussion about reducing the working day has forced sectors of the right to play the game on a field that is foreign to them. In short, “creating a field on which the opponent is forced to move”[iii] is a way to control the opponent's movements.
If one of the symptoms of “capitalist realism” is the reduction of political horizons – since it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism –, the engagement of millions of people around an agenda that advocates a life beyond work gives us some clues about the disputes capable of touching the desires of different sections of the working class and, simultaneously, confronting the advance of the extreme right in Brazil and around the world. It also shows us that one of the challenges of our time is to make clear that the struggles related to gender, race, sexuality and social class have a unifying element, namely, anti-capitalism.
History of struggles and paths to the present
The reduction of working hours is an old demand that has been present in the repertoire of the working class throughout its history. Since the beginnings of capitalism, the class struggle has been expressed in the dispute for the appropriation of more working time by capitalists, or for the reduction and longer social life of workers.
In Brazil, the 1917 Strike, which symbolizes the beginning of the great workers' mobilizations, had as its agenda, in addition to better working conditions and social life, the reduction of the working day to 8 hours and a five-and-a-half-day work week. Before, the working day could reach up to 16 hours. The reforms implemented with the 2016 coup, although they advocated a modernization of labor laws and better living conditions for the population, in reality delivered a general setback in the set of rights and achievements of the working class.
It is necessary to take into account that labor counter-reforms, the implementation of ICTs and neoliberal policies, defended by the bourgeoisie and its media spokespeople, are efficient mechanisms to intensify the super-exploitation of the working class. Marx, in The capital, had already warned us that every economic progress in capitalism simultaneously constitutes a social calamity.
This is what we have witnessed since at least the 1970s, with productive restructuring and the introduction of ICTs, the result of which has been an increase in unemployment and social inequalities, which are presented as “highly gratifying” for market interests, since they enable the growth of the industrial reserve army, competition between workers and the erosion of class solidarity.
The struggle for a reduction in working hours is not only legitimate, but also necessary, as it represents a direct confrontation of unrestrained capitalist exploitation. The organization of workers around the world for a reduction in working hours is the working class's hope of escaping the modern capitalist hell that has led people to burnout, depression, anxiety attacks, among other mental illnesses. In short, working conditions in neoliberalism massacre individuals not only physically, but also mentally, imposing an exhausting and degrading life on the majority of the population.
Policies that have directly attacked labor rights over the past 40 years, through outsourcing, flexible working hours, deregulation of the CLT, expansion of individual employment and the notions of entrepreneurship and self-employment, have put pressure on working hours, acting mainly by extending working hours beyond what is established by bourgeois laws. Often, this extension of working hours is not paid in the form of wages, but rather through a time bank, consuming the worker's social life time.
At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the 6x1 scale mainly affects women, the vast majority of whom work double shifts, both inside and outside the home, further aggravating issues related to social reproduction and the division of domestic labor and care. It is no coincidence that among the 70% of Brazilians who support the agenda, support is up to 10% higher among women.[iv]. The black and peripheral population are also the social classes most impacted by this scale, as they perform the most precarious jobs, with low pay and no social protection. In other words, the people forced to work on this scale have very well-defined race and gender.
The platformization of work, with 12-hour workdays imposed on drivers and delivery people for mobile apps, is an example of how capitalists update the ways of expropriating the life time of the working class. Therefore, technological progress under capitalism presupposes an increasingly dramatic social regression for the population. In order to continue its constant development of self-valorization, capitalism removes all meaning from work and the recognition by the worker of what is produced. In this sense, it subordinates the entire existence of individuals to the needs of their development.
Building unity in the struggle and presenting offensive agendas
The capitalist hell provides the worker with only a period of “non-life”, a lack of self-recognition, nullifying his autonomy and the time for good living, which in the capitalist reality is insufficient for social reproduction and leisure. This is because the extension of the working day is accompanied by the reduction or devaluation of the relative wage form, which is what makes access to goods and services possible under capitalism.
If the life of workers is increasingly suffering and exploited, we must not lose sight of the fact that the concentration of wealth and the emergence of billionaires have grown in alarming ways since at least the 1970s. In Brazil, 63% of social wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population,[v] which should be unacceptable for defenders of Brazilian “progress.” Fighting for a reduction in working hours in search of a better quality of life also involves the construction of a progressive tax system, with taxation of large fortunes, profits and dividends, and inheritances.
In short, it is about ensuring the distribution of socially produced wealth, preventing the State from acting like a reverse Robbery Hood. Furthermore, economists have already shown that reducing working hours is not only economically viable, but have also pointed out that experiments that adopted the 4x3 scale have yielded productivity gains.[vi]
We must reinforce the proposal presented by Congresswoman Erika Hilton, which, in addition to proposing improvements in collective bargaining, seeks to guide the National Congress and Brazilian society on an issue that is essential to the lives of the working class. At the same time, we must strengthen the struggles of the Life Beyond Work movement and transform the fight to end the 6x1 work shift into a struggle on the streets, pointing out possible and concrete paths for the population.
In the current scenario, given the rise of the far right around the world and the regression of labor rights, the fight for a reduction in working hours is one of the most important issues facing the rebalancing of forces. Therefore, unity among the different sectors of the working class, based on issues that speak to their concrete needs, is essential for building anti-capitalist horizons capable of placing the left in an offensive and proactive position in the current political situation.
*Ederson Duda is a PhD student in social sciences at Unifesp.
*Matheus Silveira de Souza is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Unicamp.
Notes
[I] Available in: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/monicabergamo/2024/12/fim-da-escala-6×1-tem-apoio-de-70-da-populacao-e-agrada-a-esquerda-e-a-direita-segundo-pesquisa.shtml
[ii] Available in: https://diplomatique.org.br/a-falacia-da-reforma-trabalhista-uma-analise-critica-da-precarizacao-do-trabalho-no-brasil/#:~:text=O%20DIEESE%20(2023)%20destaca%20que,e%20da%20precariza%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20do%20trabalho.
[iii] OLIVEIRA, Francisco de. “Politics in an age of indeterminacy: opacity and re-enchantment”. In: OLIVEIRA, F. de; RIZEK, C. (org.). The age of indeterminacy. Sao Paulo: Boitempo, 2007.
[iv] Available in: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/monicabergamo/2024/12/fim-da-escala-6×1-tem-apoio-de-70-da-populacao-e-agrada-a-esquerda-e-a-direita-segundo-pesquisa.shtml.
[v] Available in: https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/internacional/desigualdade-63-da-riqueza-do-brasil-esta-nas-maos-de-1-da-populacao-diz-relatorio-da-oxfam/.
[vi] MANZANO, M; BORSARI, P; DARI KREIN, J;SCAPINI, E. End of the 6×1 scale: viable for the economy, urgent for society. Available at: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/opiniao/2024/11/fim-da-escala-6×1-viavel-para-a-economia-urgente-para-a-sociedade.shtml
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