By Lisandra Paraguassu and Marx Vasconcelos
BRASILIA/BELÉM (Reuters) – A strike by construction workers in Brazil’s Amazonian city of Belem, venue of a global climate summit in November, has partially disrupted work on the Leaders’ Village that is due to house dozens of world leaders in just six weeks’ time.
“One section of the compound is about 60% halted,” said Cleber Rabelo, president of the local construction union, which is calling for a 9.5% increase in monthly wages. “In the other section, we managed to carry out temporary shutdowns,” he added.
The strike, which began on Monday, has added fresh woes to Brazil’s efforts to organize the summit known as COP30.
High demand and soaring hotel prices in Belem have dampened the mood, with several country delegations and civil society groups saying they are being shut out of the conference by high costs.
The compound that will house government leaders needs to be completed in time for a presidential summit that will take place on November 6-7 ahead of the November 10-21 COP30 conference.
Images taken by Reuters on Friday showed that a large building with a helipad is still in the final phases of construction.
A federal government source monitoring construction told Reuters that four of the five blocks in the compound are nearly finished and were initially intended to be operational in October.
The same source acknowledged that the strike could delay the project, although the source said the government expects the building work to be done in time.
Rabelo criticized employers for making an offer that the union rejected as too little, leading workers to continue a strike now affecting building work across the city. COP construction sites, he added, were partially spared.
The strike has also affected other hotel projects tied to COP30, but the companies handling those projects reached agreements with workers, Rabelo said, allowing work to resume on Monday.
(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Belem and Marx Vasconcelos in Belem; Editing by Manuela Andreoni and Frances Kerry)
