Strike in Belem slows COP30 construction, including heads of state hotel

By Lisandra Paraguassu and Marx Vasconcelos

Brasilia/Belém (Reuters) – In November, the strike of construction workers in Belem, the Amazon city of Brazil, a global climate summit in November, partially broke the work in the village of leaders from dozens of world leaders in only six weeks.

“Part of the compound stopped by about 60%,” Cleber Rabelo, President of the Local Construction Union, required an increase of 9.5% in monthly wages. He said. “We managed to make temporary closures in the other section.”

The strike, which started on Monday, added new problems to Brazil’s efforts to organize the summit known as COP30.

High demand and rising hotel prices in Belem, various country delegations and civil society group conference with high costs, he says.

The compound, which will host government leaders, must be completed on time for a presidential summit on November 6-7 before the 10-21 November COP30 conference.

Images taken by Reuters on Friday showed that a large building with a helicopter track is still in the final stages of construction.

A federal government told Reuters, the source monitoring construction, said that four of the five blocks in the compound were almost over and initially intended to be operational in October.

The same source admitted that the strike could delay the project, but the source said the government expects the building to be done on time.

Rabelo criticized the employers for making an proposal that the union rejected very little, and the workers now continued a strike that affects building business throughout the city. COP, the construction areas of the partially survived, he added.

The strike also affected other hotel projects of COP30, but said that the companies dealing with these projects reached an agreement with the workers.

(Organization by Lisandra Paraguassu in Belem and Marx Vasconcelos in Belem; Manuela Andreoni and Frances Kerry)