Brazilian Judge Rules Belo Monte Work Stoppage Illegal
26 April 2012 - 4:01PM
Dow Jones News
A Brazilian court late Wednesday declared to be illegal a strike
that stopped construction on the controversial Belo Monte dam.
A judge in the regional labor court of Para, the state where the
11,200 megawatt dam is being built, ruled Wednesday that the
contract signed in November between workers and Consorcio
Construtor Belo Monte, the group building the dam, is valid until
October because the company did nothing to violate that
agreement.
Workers are seeking improved pay and more time off to visit
families, but the judge said clauses in the contract relative to
those demands were upheld by the company and so workers can't
strike. According to a statement on the court's website, should the
employees not return to work they will be fined 200,000 Brazilian
reais ($106,000) a day.
Roginel Gobbo, vice president of Sintrapav, or the Union of
Heavy Construction Industry Workers, which represents the
construction workers, told government news agency Agencia Brasil
that he is awaiting official notification of the court decision
before taking a vote on the matter.
Sintrapav didn't answer calls to its press office made by Dow
Jones Newswires during regular business hours.
Sintrapav earlier this week said that all construction employees
stopped work as of Monday, while support employees such as health
and food services workers are working with limited staff.
Belo Monte is set to be the world's third-largest hydroelectric
plant when it begins operations in 2015. The dam, one of many
planned for Brazil's Amazon basin, has been criticized by
environmentalists and indigenous-rights groups who fear the dam
will increase often violent struggles over access to land in the
contentious region.
Andrade Gutierrez, Camargo Correa and Odebrecht, three of
Brazil's biggest construction companies, are all part of CCBM,
which is building the dam. Once built, the dam will be operated by
Norte Energia, which is composed of government-controlled utility
Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras, or Eletrobras (EBR, ELET6.BR); the
pension funds of state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR,
PETR3.BR, PETR4.BR) and government lender Caixa Economica; as well
as utilities Neoenergia (GNAN3B.SM) and Cemig (CIG, CMIG4.BR) and
mining company Vale (VALE, VALE3.BR, VALE5.FR, VALE5.BR).
Eletrobras is the biggest shareholder, with a 49.98% stake.
The strike at Belo Monte follows work stoppages at other major
hydroelectric dams in the Amazon basin. Workers at the Santo
Antonio and Jirau dams, being built on the Madeira river close to
the Bolivian border, returned to work at the start of this month
after the most recent strike led to wage increases.
The government alleged that middlemen between construction
companies and workers were making promises to workers that weren't
kept by construction companies. As a result, the government pushed
for more universal contract terms at future dams to avoid such
problems at other work sites.
-By Paulo Winterstein, Dow Jones Newswires; 55-11-3544-7073;
paulo.winterstein@dowjones.com
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