The People's Record

Colombian GM workers sew mouths shut to protest work conditions
August 16, 2012

orge Parra struggles to get the words out of his painfully swollen lips, stitched together with thick thread. “This is for all the workers,” he says with a muffled voice. “We are now prepared to die because this situation is critical. General Motors has given us no choice.”

Parra, 35, is one of a group of former General Motors employees who have sewn their mouths shut in a hunger strike protesting the treatment of workers at the company’s Colombian plant, Colmotores. They say GM has fired injured workers, refused to provide compensation and erased medical records. After spending a year protesting outside Bogota’s United States Embassy with no results, they decided to take drastic action.

“The sewing was extremely painful,” says Manuel Ospina, a 42-year-old father of five who says he’s been left permanently disabled by a spinal injury. “But the more pain we suffer here every day, the more hunger we feel, hopefully we can force people to take notice. If we can’t resolve this problem we will die trying.”

Parra and Ospina say more than 200 Colmotores employees have been injured while working at the automotive plant outside Colombia’s capital city of Bogota. Herniated discs, severe carpal tunnel syndrome, lumbar scoliosis and chronic tendonitis are among the list of complaints they claim many have suffered after years spent doing repetitive, physical work making GM’s car parts.

Instead of providing medical care and changing the work patterns of injured employees, GM fires them, according to the protesters, who last year set up the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of Colmotores (Asotrecol) in an attempt to defend their rights.

GM, which has more than 1,800 Colombian employees, vehemently denies Asotrecol’s allegations. In a statement, the company said: “General Motors Colmotores is respectful of the law and has never put the health or the well-being of its employees at risk…No employee has been discharged for health reasons.” Of the ex-employees who have filed legal claims, 95% of the cases have been resolved in GM’s favor. Asotrecol blames the Colombian government and GM’s “corruption.”

The protesters say they are in no doubt as to why they were fired. Injuries suffered on the job gradually rendered them incapable of carrying out physical labor. “I fell down the stairs carrying a piece of machinery,” says Ospina, who worked for GM for 11 years before he was fired in 2008. “I received serious injuries to my spine which the company doctor said we would not report to the insurers so that I could keep my job. The pain got worse over time and left me unable to walk. GM refused to listen or give me different work and after I complained multiple times they fired me.”

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