After two days of strike, considered illegal by the courts, the Rio de Janeiro BRT (articulated buses with exclusive lanes) resumed operating in the three corridors of the system this morning (27). According to the City Hall Operations Center, with the end of the strike, the city returned to the Normality Stage at 9 am. The municipality was in the Mobilization Stage since 6:45 am on Friday (25), “due to factors that influence mobility”.
In a demonstration yesterday (26) on Twitter, Mayor Eduardo Paes informed that he met with Mobi-Rio, a company created in December to take over the management of the BRT, and said that he would have to resign for just cause if the stoppage was not suspended. . According to Paes, there is a suspicion that the movement of BRT drivers has been articulated by transport entrepreneurs, constituting a crime of lockout.
“I talked to the Minister of Justice asking the Federal Police to enter the case, since the evidence of a federal lockout crime is stronger. The carioca population cannot be disrespected by vested interests. All workers who are paralyzed received the compensation they were entitled to with public resources, they were recently hired by Mobi-Rio, their salaries are up to date and the stoppage has already been considered illegal by the Labor Court”, said the mayor.
Paes also claimed that the current movement is similar to that experienced in the 1960s, when trams were withdrawn from circulation in the city. “The same process happened with the trams. The modal’s reputation was destroyed and it was replaced by the ‘lotadas’ (buses), which took over the city in the mid-1900s. [anos] 60 without regular contract. The goal is to prevent change,” the mayor said on Twitter.
Intervention
Yesterday (26), the Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro (TJRJ) determined the suspension of the intervention of the city hall on the BRT. The preliminary decision suspended the effects of the decrees that had established the expiry of the concession contracts for the consortia that operated the lines.
Also on Twitter, Paes regretted the suspension of municipal intervention by the TJRJ. “Judicial decision is respected and accepted, but not always understood. Suspending the takeover because of the stoppage is giving reason to the lockout made by those who destroyed the BRT. Interrupting the process is prolonging people’s suffering,” he wrote.
The BRT system has been operating under the intervention of the city government since March last year, with allegation of non-compliance with contractual obligations by the consortia.
Rio Ônibus, which represents companies in the sector, considers the municipal intervention illegitimate, as the right of defense would not have been respected. According to the company, the breach of contract was due to the lack of economic balance, since the city government would not have assumed its duties, failing to inspect clandestine transport and not authorizing a tariff readjustment for three years.
