SAO PAULO (AP) — A subway strike in Sao
Paulo that threatened to disrupt the opening of the World Cup was
averted Wednesday night even as airport workers in Rio de Janeiro
declared a 24-hour work stoppage in the main destination for football
fans travelling to Brazil.
Some 1,500 subway workers in Sao Paulo
voted against going back on strike in a pay dispute.
They had suspended
the walkout Monday amid a popular backlash and government pressure to
end the transportation chaos in Brazil’s biggest city.
“We thought that right now it’s better
to wait,” union president Altino Prazeres said, but added that he
wouldn’t rule out resuming the strike sometime during the month-long
soccer tournament. “We get the feeling that maybe we aren’t as prepared
for a full confrontation with police on the day the World Cup starts.”
The union said its members would hold a
march Thursday morning demanding that 42 workers fired during the
five-day work stoppage are rehired.
World Cup organizers are counting on Sao
Paulo’s subway system to carry tens of thousands of fans Thursday to
Itaquerao stadium, where Brazil will play Croatia in the tournament’s
first game far from the hotel areas where most tourists are staying.
Even as tensions eased in Sao Paulo,
labour conflicts heated up in Rio, where fans were arriving ahead of
Sunday’s match between Argentina and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
On Wednesday, check-in counter clerks,
baggage handlers and janitorial staff who have been demanding raises of
at least 5.6 per cent for several months voted to strike starting at
midnight. The work stoppage will affect the city’s Galeao international
airport as well as the Santos Dumont airport that connects Rio to other
Brazilian destinations
A union representative said only 20 per
cent of workers would stay off the job for 24 hours, abiding by a labor
court order that threatened to fine unions more than $22,000 if staffing
fell below 80 per cent of normal levels. The official agreed to discuss
specifics of the walkout only if not quoted by name because he wasn’t
authorized to speak publicly.
The airport workers’ strike is the
latest unrest to hit Brazil as workers battered by several years of high
inflation take advantage of the spotlight from the World Cup to
pressure for pay raises from employers and the government.
Teachers remain on strike in Rio and
routinely block streets with rallies, and subway workers in that city
briefly threatened a walkout. Police in several cities have also gone on
strike in recent weeks, but are back at work now.
There also has been a steady drumbeat of
anti-government protests across Brazil criticizing the billions spent
on hosting the World Cup and demanding improvements in public services.
The protests that began last year have diminished in size but not in
frequency, and they also have disrupted traffic at times.
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