Brazil, SP: State government excluded Subway technicians of workmanships' fiscalization.

The Union of Subway Workers denounces that São Paulo government took care of the claim of the contractors and, in the licitation of the workmanships, determined that the companies themselves would fiscalize the construction of Line 4.

For the subway workers, the contract answered to a project of privatization of the system of transport by means of Public and Private Partnership (PPP), whose winning trust congregates companies responsible for the workmanship, as Camargo Corrêa, Andrade Gutierrez and Odebrecht Renato Godoy de Toledo.

The accident in the workmanships of line 4 of the Subway of São Paulo, in the friday (12), that made eight victims (two of them found already without life, the other 6 remain disappeared), can have resulted of a process that has been very denounced for the Union of the Subway Workers of São Paulo.

The trust Yellow Way, formed for contractors Odebrecht, OAS, Queiroz Galvão, Camargo Corrêa and Andrade Gutierrez, won in 2003 a licitation opened for the state government, then led for the Toucan Geraldo Alckmin. The licitation, that allowed the trust to execute the workmanships of line 4 of the subway, was made in the system “turn key”, in which the contracted one is responsible for all the stages of the workmanship.

Being thus, the trust accumulates the functions of execution of the workmanship and of its fiscalization, as much technique as financial.. Since its foundation in 1968, this is the first workmanship of the Subway where the technician team of the company was completely unloaded of the process.

“Our technicians have international recognition. Formerly, the contractor was licited and the technicians of the Subway folloied the works, giving endorsement or not on the advances of the workmanship.

Now, the technicians will only have access to its structure when the workmanships are concluded ”, says Manuel Xavier, director of communication of the Union of the Subway Workers. Xavier affirms that the contractors used if to complain about the severity of the technicians of the Subway.“They work with the logic of the market, evidently, they want the greater profit, then they try to conclude everything as soon as posible and with the lesser cost”, concludes Xavier. For the Union, the process of licitation for the execution of the workmanship is tied with the licitation that foresees the exploration of Line 4 for the private initiative, by means of the regimen of Public and Private Partnership (PPP).

The winning trust is composed for national and foreign groups and includes the participation of contractors who also are responsible for the workmanship, as Camargo Corrêa, Andrade Gutierrez and Odebrecht. The exploration of line 4 of the Subway for private companies was a target of mobilization of the category of subway workers, that are contrary to the privatization of the transport system. “The Subway, and other transports, are public good. They cannot be submitted to the logic of the market”, defends the syndical controller.

Another workmanship of Subway in progress, the magnifying of line 2 (that binds Vila Madalena, West Zone to the High of Ipiranga, in South Zone), is being made in “the old” system of partnership, where the technician guides the employees of the contractor. In this workmanship, no accident was registered, while in line 4, without counting the landslide of the last friday, already sets of ten of accidents had occurred, with 11 wounded laborers and one died. “In March of 2005, when the first accidents had occurred, we ask for an audience in the State legislature of São Paulo so that the state government and the direction of the Company of the Metropolitan (Subway) explained the reason of so many accidents, but both had found that the question were not important Xavier denounces. After the first accidents, the union asked for to the Public prosecution service that investigated the causes. The inquiries had been initiated, but, according to Xavier, “they had not been agile the sufficient to prevent the tragedy of the last friday”.With the beginning of the workmanships, some houses nearby the quarter of Pines (West Zone), had suffered sinkings, cracks and until partial landslides.

Contractors say that strong rains had caused landslide; but Rain Index of December and January was not abnormal, according to Inmet (Meteorology Institute).

Knowing and previewing all these facts, in April the 28th of 2006, the state deputies Simão Pedro and Nivaldo Santana had sent to the General Office of the attorney general of the Justice of São Paulo a representation for the immediate verification of the “damages to the urban order”, that they placed in “risk of security, physical integrity, health and life” of the inhabitants of the region.