Pandemic legislation and the dangerous exception regard to fundamental labor rights

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the emergency labor legislation issued to face the Covid-19 pandemic, consistent with Provisional Measures n. 927 and 936/2020, and its flexibilization measures for workers' fundamental rights, in particular the authorization to enter into individual agreements of contractual suspension and proportional reduction of hours and wages, in contradiction to the collective bargaining required by art. 7, VI, of the Constitution. The judicial interpretation promoted by the Supreme Federal Court around the matter, is analyzed in the precautionary measure of ADI 6363/DF, which endorsed the exceptional measure of removal of fundamental rights, in the context of the broad jurisprudential movement to relax labor social rights, promoted by the Court in the last decade. The article ends its objective with a reflection on the fundamentals of the STF's precautionary decision, pointing out in them arguments that carry a dangerous risk of “argumentative contagion” flexibilizing fundamental rights in any scenario of economic crisis, in addition to the pandemic episode, as a warning of preservation of the civilizing and democratic framework of work in Brazil, signed by the 1988 Constitution.