With just over a week until the first game of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the government is offering Federal Police a 15.8 percent pay hike.  And now the union representing the cops has called off a series of planned job actions that were to have taken place “before, during, and after” the tournament.

Under the deal, federal police agents will receive a 12 percent salary increase beginning in July, and another 3.8 percent bump in January.  Civilian typists and forensic technicians are covered.  And the federal officers’ union Fenapef chief Jones Borges Leal said the government had also agreed to set up a working group to discuss officers’ career progression, another key demand. 

The government was keen to head off another strike like the one in February, when 250,000 federal cops who handle criminal investigations, border security, and counter-trafficking operations had walked off the job.  Regional police strikes saw massive rises in crime while the officers stayed off the job.  Also, anti-World Cup protests are picking up steam, and memories are still fresh of last year’s demonstrations in which more than a million people took to the street.