Global soccer leaders descended on Sao Paulo yesterday amid tensions over subway workers’ new threat to spoil Brazil’s World Cup party by going on strike on the day of the opening match.
FIFA opened its 64th congress under the cloud of a corruption scandal surrounding the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
Sao Paulo is facing headaches of its own after subway workers threatened to resume a damaging strike tomorrow, the day that the world’s eyes turn to the Brazilian megacity for the start of a World Cup whose buildup has been plagued by delays, overspending and protests.
Photo: Reuters
The workers voted on Monday to suspend their five-day-old strike, which had caused massive traffic jams and cut off the subway service to Corinthians Arena, the stadium hosting the opening ceremony and first game.
Officials are hard-pressed to avoid more problems as a billion people worldwide tune in to the game on TV.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and 12 heads of state and government will be in the stadium, which workers are rushing to finish on time.
Fans arriving in the city earlier on Monday were met by daunting traffic jams and other delays after police used tear gas to disperse the striking workers. It was the fifth day of salary protests. Union leaders and local authorities are to renew negotiations today.
The walkout added to widespread concerns over whether Brazil’s government can prevent street protests and other simmering labor disputes from disrupting the tournament.
The strike caused giant traffic jams again on Monday, creating huge delays for soccer fans trying to get into the city.
Many waited for about two hours in lines for taxis at the city’s international airport and spent another two or three hours to reach their hotels.
“We’ve known this [the World Cup] was going to happen for years, but nobody solved these problems,” said Ricardo Fars, a Brazilian manager for a technology company who returned to Sao Paulo from a business trip in Peru on Monday and waited at least two hours for a taxi.
Police fired tear gas at metro workers at the city’s Ana Rosa station on Monday morning and the state metro company later said it had fired 42 striking workers.
Union officials late on Monday said the success of continued negotiations and any decision to resume the strike would hinge on whether the dismissed workers are rehired.
A local court ruled on Sunday that the strike was illegal. Workers want a 12 percent pay rise, well above the company’s offer of 8.7 percent.
Other groups, including teachers and bus drivers, have staged strikes in Sao Paulo in recent weeks to demand higher pay. Analysts say the city is becoming a battlefield for dissenting political views, hurting its economy.
Frustration with broken promises and the ballooning cost of new World Cup stadiums contributed to widespread protests that drew over a million Brazilians into the streets during a soccer tournament last year.
However, World Cup organizers got a boost on Monday when the homeless worker’s movement, which has organized most of the protests of recent weeks, said it had reached an agreement with the government and would not take to the streets during the tournament.
In a statement, Brazil’s government late on Monday said it had agreed to build public housing units near the stadium as one of several concessions to the group.
In Sao Paulo, traffic peaked in the morning rush hour near record levels before easing up as the day progressed. However, by early evening it looked sure to worsen again after part of a monorail under construction collapsed onto a busy thoroughfare below, killing at least one passerby, local TV reported.
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