General Motors workers in Colombia sew their mouths shut in hunger strike...

Seven men have now sewn their mouths shut in a hunger strike over the treatment of workers at a Colombian subsidiary of General Motors.

GM Colombia is failing to look after employees who have been injured at work, say the protesters, who have decided to take drastic action after camping for a year outside the United States embassy in Bogota.

Nine men are now refusing food, seven of them with their lips sewn up. They are receiving fluids by IV drip, said Jess Hunter-Bowman, a spokesman for Witness for Peace, an U.S. activist group supporting the protesters.

Asocetrol, the association created by workers and former workers at GM's assembly plant outside Bogota, says GM fired employees who reported on-the-job injuries to the company’s physician and erased their statements from medical files. Colmotores, GM's Colombian automotive factory, has refused to recognize the injuries as occupational, Asotrecol said in a statement. Full story...

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