Senate Enacts Provisional Measure for Economic Freedom

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Senate approved last night, August 21st, the Provisional Measure (PM) on Economic Freedom.

The senators, however, removed three articles from the text involving changes to the rules governing work on Sundays.

With these changes, the PM becomes law and proceeds for presidential approval or veto. The Provisional Measure had been introduced by the government to reduce red tape and simplify the setting-up of businesses, particularly micro and small companies.

The government expects 3.7 million jobs to be generated in ten years as a consequence of the new law and that simplifying the process of opening and closing companies and waiving permits for low-risk establishments will boost the economy and generate jobs faster than the current model.

Plenary session debates took over two hours. The main reason behind this was several senators’ complaints, mostly from the opposition, about the introduction of amendments extraneous to the original PM when the Chamber passed it.

The amendments blocking the vote were related to changes that relaxed labor rules. After an agreement with the government leader, Fernando Bezerra, Senator Fabiano Contarato submitted a request to vote on the issue. The request suggested the deletion of the three articles that relaxed restrictions on work on Sundays.

As a result, the option of a 24-hour break on weekdays other than Sundays and exemption from double pay for work on Sundays and public holidays were excluded from the text.

Debates

The rapporteur for the Senate Conversion Project, Soraya Thronicke, said that the PM approval would provide “freedom” to Brazilian entrepreneurs. In her opinion, there will be a better distribution between income and employment.

“The project seeks to dispel the anachronism generated by the state machine, drawing the government into the 21st century, honoring entrepreneurship and a better distribution of income.”

Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP) compared the provisions relaxing work on Sundays — as if it were a normal day of the week for labor purposes — to “repealing the Golden Law”, in reference to the law that abolished slavery in Brazil.

The agreement removing these portions of the law guaranteed the approval of the full Provisional Measure.