Waack: Electoral interest halts serious debate on work

The reasons for discussing reduction in working hours and changes in work schedule are worthy.

This is, without a doubt, a matter of enormous, profound and long-term consequences. Introduced by the most petty political considerations, which is solely and exclusively, for the sake of social advances, to win votes in any way before the next elections.

Brazil is a country with high informality, low productivity, serious judicialization of labor relations and legislation in the sector that, in part, struggles with advances in technology.

It is a particularly challenging context when one considers that the Brazilian economy is growing far below what it would need to take the country out of the middle-income situation it has not been able to escape for decades.

The way it is being carried out, this important issue of working hours and work schedules only makes this environment even more complicated and difficult. The rush was so great that an avalanche of legal challenges was expected to reach the STF (Supreme Federal Court).

The propaganda of a government desperate to find a way forward has committed itself to banning any serious debate on such a complex topic. True to the "us versus them" marketing, it transformed employers into mill lords.

And employees are hyposufficient beings - that is, uninformed people incapable of taking care of their interests - that only the State, then, can protect.

From a labor point of view, it is a huge setback - as it reduces the capacity for collective bargaining.

From a political point of view, it is a portrait of the system's inability to think about the country's problems in a comprehensive way.

Source: CNN