End of the 6x1 scale reaches supermarkets and compensation agreements now depend on unions
Reducing working hours to 40 hours forces retailers to review schedules and renegotiate compensation, and the supermarket sector is the first practical test, according to Estadão.
BY THE X-TRADER NEWS NEWSROOM · REPORTING FROM ESTADÃO · 2 MIN
Supermarkets became the case study of Constitutional Amendment 141 (EC 141), which ended the 6x1 scale and reduced the weekly working hours from 44 to 42 hours, with a further reduction planned for 40. According to an article published by Estadão, after the approval phase, the time has come to face the practical implementation problems.
The sector is quite heterogeneous. There are everything from family-based businesses, with three or four employees, to companies with one hundred employees or more. Today, the vast majority of employees work 44 hours in six days, which is equivalent to around 7.33 hours per day. When recalculating for the 5x2 scale with 42 hours per week, the daily working day increases to 8.4 hours, according to Estadão.
The most sensitive point is in the compensation agreement. Today, this arrangement is made simply and directly between employee and employer. According to the new design, it will have to be negotiated with the category's unions. In other words, a decision that was previously restricted to the relationship between the parties now depends on a collective body.
The author of the column is tough on the amendment. For him, the political phase of the text has already ended, and the problem is now operational. The title sums up the tone by stating that the amendment came out worse than the sonnet.
What changes for the investor
For those who follow retail on the stock exchange, the first effect to observe is the cost of labor and the ability of chains to organize shifts with longer daily shifts and fewer weekly hours. When an agreement depends on unions, the deadline and result of the negotiation tend to be less predictable than a direct agreement, and this burden falls more on networks with many employees. From the point of view of those who defend free markets and fiscal responsibility, the test will be to know how much of this change companies absorb and how much they pass on to the consumer. The article does not provide estimates of financial impact or projections for quotations.
Automatically translated from Portuguese.
