Olympic construction workers end strike

Striking Rio Olympics construction workers said Friday they had ended their stoppage after winning their demand for an eight percent pay rise.

Work on some of the venues for next year's Games came to a partial halt Tuesday when some 70 percent of 12,000 workers preparing South America's first Olympiad downed their tools.

"We have obtained an eight percent rise compared with the seven percent offered by management and went back to work Thursday," Nilson Duarte Costa, president of Rio's heavy construction workers' union, told AFP.

Some of the sites affected included the Olympic Stadium and a cluster of venues being built in the northern district of Deodoro, as well as Galeao international airport and the metro system.

While the strikers claimed victory, a management representative insisted that the days lost would have to be made up over the coming two months and added only around 30 percent of the workers had joined the stoppage.

He also insisted that the stoppage would not seriously impact preparations for the August 5-21 event.

The strike coincided with the latest in a series of review visits by members of the International Olympic Committee.

On its most recent visit to the host city in February, the IOC drew attention to concerns over the state of preparations for golf, cycling and equestrian sports.