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Labor Strife Weighs Down World Cup Preparations in Brazil
Tales Azzoni | February 08, 2012

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Sao Paulo. Workers building and renovating Brazil’s stadiums for the 2014 World Cup are threatening to go on strike if employers don’t agree to their demands for unified salaries and benefits.

There have been isolated strikes across the nation, but now unions representing workers in each of the 12 host cities are trying to come together to plead for better conditions for everyone.

Union leader Claudio da Silva Gomes said on Tuesday that workers were ready to go on strike as early as next month if construction firms did not agree to give employees the same salaries and benefits regardless of which venue they were working on.

FIFA has said World Cup preparations are already behind schedule and stadium construction has been one of the main concerns. The strike would create even more delays at several venues, especially those which need to have stadiums ready for the Confederations Cup next year.

Gomes, a leader at the national union organization CUT, said it would tell the government and World Cup organizers about their intentions in the coming weeks.

“We have workers doing almost exactly the same kind of work, but they are not earning the same salary or being entitled to the same benefits at the different venues. This doesn’t make sense,” he said. “If they are doing the same work, they should be getting paid the same salary, regardless of which region they are working in.”

He said there were different salaries and benefits to workers even when the same construction company was involved.

Pay discrepancies are common in Brazil in all sectors, especially in the more impoverished north and northeast regions. Gomes said the workers in the southeast and the southern regions made nearly twice as much as the ones in the northeast.

“It’s going to be more difficult to reach an agreement in these areas because the difference between what workers are making there compared to those in the south is significant,” he said.

Support in the cities where workers already receive better salaries may not be as strong. Workers in Rio, for example, said they might not even join the movement if they were able reach a separate agreement locally.

“We might participate only in solidarity,” Rio de Janeiro union leader Nilson Duarte said, “or if our agreement is not as good as the one being sought collectively. We don’t know yet if that’s going to happen.”

There are more than 20,000 workers either renovating or building the stadiums in the 12 host cities.

The workers are seeking a unified starting monthly salary of about 1,000 reals ($580). They also want all workers to receive the same basic benefits and improved overtime payment.

Associated Press