Strike halts work at South Africa's World Cup stadiums (1st Lead)

Jul 8, 2009, 11:29 GMT

Johannesburg - The construction of several 2010 World Cup football stadiums in South Africa ground to a halt on Wednesday as tens of thousands of workers began an open-ended strike over pay.

The construction workers' strike, called by two unions, got underway around midday.

Five stadiums, a new airport in the port city of Durban, the Gautrain fast train being built to link Johannesburg airport to the city's Sandton business district and new power stations are affected.

One of the unions, the National Union of Mineworkers, said around 70,000 workers were involved.

The action comes after wage negotiations between the building contractors and workers broke down. The workers are looking for a 13 per cent wage increase; the employers are offering 10.4 per cent.

South Africa is upgrading five and building five new stadiums for the World Cup. Four of the five upgrades are already finished and one of the new stadiums - in Port Elizabeth - has also been completed.

The rest are between 75 and 90 per cent completed.

After a delayed start and two previous strikes by workers at the venue, Cape Town's new 68,000-seat Greenpoint stadium is already running right up against deadline.

But a spokesman for the city downplayed the strike on SAfm public radio, saying the city was confident it would be completed by December 14, the deadline for the stadium handover to World Cup organizers FIFA.

The Labour Court on Monday turned down an application by the contractors for a court interdict to prevent the strike.