2022 Race

Following backlash, Lula gives up on revoking labor reform

labor reform brazil
Unions protesting in Salvador. Photo: Joa Souza/Shutterstock

After pledging to revoke the 2017 labor reform, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took a step back and said he will only review the reform, focusing on three specific issues:

  1. Changing intermittent work rules, in which an employee can be called to work without specific working hours and receive less than the minimum wage;
  2. Permissions for unions to decide on workers’ contributions during assemblies. The labor reform eliminated obligatory union dues and while Lula says he doesn’t want things to go back to how they were before, but rather that associations should be free to decide on their funding;
  3. The creation of specific labor laws for couriers working for delivery apps such as iFood and Rappi, who are currently in legal limbo.

With the measures, Lula hopes to find consensus among companies, unions, and workers. In this scenario, he would be the mediator between the divergent forces of society. However, he will face resistance from his party federation — which defends the total repeal of the reform — and from the market, which does not welcome changes to current labor laws.