Workers promise strike at Rio's airport

Ground staff at Rio de Janeiro's airports say they are planning to stage a 24-hour partial strike on Thursday, the opening day of the World Cup, even as a subway strike in Sao Paulo that threatened to disrupt the first match was averted Wednesday night. 

The airport workers vowed to maintain 80 percent service but the strike will raise fears of delays as thousands of football fans descend on the city around the opening match in Sao Paulo and the first game in Rio on Sunday.

The walkout, which takes effect from midnight on Wednesday, will affect Rio's Galeao international airport, and the Santos Dumon airport, which provides domestic services to Sao Paulo.

Al Jazeera has been unable to confirm if the city's Jacarepagua airport will also be affected.

Sao Paulo, which hosts Thursday's opening match between Brazil and Croatia, is a 40-minute flight from Rio.

The umbrella union that represents the workers is calling for World Cup bonuses, better working conditions and raises of up to 12 percent, but says employers are offering a maximum of eight percent.

"After nine months of intense but failed negotiations and intransigence from employers, the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Airports Employees' Union confirms it will strike on June 12," the union said on its website.

More than three million Brazilians and 600,000 foreigners are expected to travel in Brazil during the tournament, which wraps up with the final match in Rio on July 13.

A labor court has issued an injunction ordering the unions to maintain staffing at 80 percent of normal levels or face fines of up to $22,400.

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.

In the northern city of Natal, where the United States plays its first game Monday against Ghana, bus drivers will stay home Thursday for at least 24 hours to press their demands for a 16 percent pay increase.

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.

As are some 1,500 subway workers in Sao Paulo who voted on Wednesday against resuming a five-day strike that would have caused traffic chaos during the opening game.

The workers went on strike last week but suspended their action on Monday night for two days to decide whether to walk out again during Thursday's Brazil-Croatia match.

"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 monthlong 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."

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.

The union said its members would hold a march Thursday morning demanding that 42 workers fired during the five-day work stoppage are rehired.

Al Jazeera and wire services