Colombian Workers Sew Their Mouths Together To Protest GM Plant Firing Tactics
24
Four former GM plant workers in Colombia have sewn their lips together as part of an indefinite hunger strike in a final attempt to resolve the ongoing practice of debilitating workplace conditions and subsequent reactionary measures by the automaker. Organized by the association of workers and ex-workers (ASOTRECOL), the protest revolves around the plant’s practice of firing injured workers for injuries they received on the job, shortly after the company detected their injuries in its medical facilities. Workers’ injuries stem from repetitive movements, lifting excessive weights, harmful body postures, and an accelerated work pace on the assembly line.
On August 1, 2012, several workers from the plant will have already been peacefully protesting for one year in front of the U.S. Embassy in Colombia. Videos created by ASOTRECOL state that the practice has been occurring for up to 25 years, affecting thousands of workers. In addition, the plant has dismissed at least one worker for having organized an association defending workers’ rights and building awareness of the situation.
“To symbolize their commitment to this hunger strike and to the justice that they are seeking, they will be sewing their mouths closed and plan to carry out the hunger strike to the death,” ASOTRECOL announced in a statement.
Protesters are seeking justice in the form of compensation, medical care, reintegration into the company, or re-training for other jobs.
“The health of the workers was destroyed creating GM profits,” reads a translation of a protest video.
The protest specifically targets GM CEO Dan Akerson and U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Peter McKinley, with Akerson being the subject of a remix video entitled “Crisis of credibility” that explains the protest:
The practice of firing injured workers has also had a toll on the workers’ families, many of whom have lost their houses, have nothing to eat, and have had basic services such as water, electricity, and gas shut off. The association of the workers and ex-workers has opened a petition on change.org and is encouraging users to sign it online by visiting the website and using the keywords “gm workers” to find the petition. As of this writing, the petition has 578 supporters.
GM could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Videos containing more information can be found below.
GM Generating Misery
Kicked to the Curb
Stolen Health
Sick and Fired: The GM Way in Colombia
Sorry boys, True Blood did that last week.
Shame on GM Columbia; bad management…
OMG these people need help
No Unions?
Shame on you GM. Best way to solve this is simple : don’t buy GM. Japan does better and cheaper anyway!
You should never google search “Apple factories in China”. Might make you look at your iPhone differently
Same goes for Nike.
Claude, dude you are talking to the wrong crowd here…
Holy shit. This deplorable, and even though it is probably the way most companies operate in Columbia, GM DOES NOT GET AN EXEMPTION!
Seriously, GM, you couldn’t be reached for comment!?
GM cannot treat it’s international workforce this way and expect to prosper as a whole.
There’s a give-and-take with labor, and a happy workforce makes good cars. Worker abuses will only result in uprisings, absolutely awful news exposure and obviously effected sales and poor product quality.
GM has to step up here and improve it’s worker safety record. Get these people help and don’t lay them off because they are injured. If GM estabishes new worker reforms there, and gets positive publicity, it’s a win-win for everybody.
Are people admonishing gm over a one sided couple of paragraphs? If you use US OSHA standards as the bar to judge, you will have to work very hard for a country to buy imports to USA from. All of Asia is out except the Aussies. Africa too. South America. Mexico is out too.
Why does GM need a factory there?
to build vehicles for the South American market. they get cars north america doesnt get, or get yet, like the new Colorado
This is horrible, and the fact is General Motors are closing plants in North America and moving them to China, Mexico etc and this is what comes of it? They treat their workers horribly in these countries, yet people wonder why we have unions??? This is a perfect example of why unions are neccessary, cause with out them this would happen in our own back yards just horrible!
Dudes, GM builds cars all over the world for specific markets. The factory in Colombia is for south American market. GM has invested heavily in its US factories. One other point, standards in other countries are completely different then what we are used to. How a factory is managed in another country is completely different, in fact GM may not be able to influence how that factory is ran like they would wish… Look at Colombian history in the last 30 years folks, look at the regions history… See you start thinking a little and a broader picture comes to light…
I agree with you. It does bring bad press to GM and if they are powerless to change these things, it would be nice if they said that. They are a company and not really qualified to make changes in another country, nor should we expect them to. It would be great if they could, but that will not happen in Columbia. If we expect other countries to play by our rules when operating business here, then we should do the same when operating in their country.
Given the size and scope of GM — as well as the power it carries even when crossing international borders — I think it would be more than feasible for the company to be an enabler of change globally. For instance, remember when Google raised international awareness about China’s ridiculous censorship issues to a point that it pulled out of the largest market? GM can do the same.
I agree with Alex. GM can set its own standards. It doesn’t have to follow deplorable guidelines just because they may be the norm in a country. Even if GM weren’t capable of improving labor conditions worldwide by raising the bar itself, respect for the rule of law and basic human decency shouldn’t be negotiable. GM broke Colombian law by firing these workers after their bodies were so broken by the work that they were no longer able to perform manual labor. In theory, Colombian workers are legally protected from being fired for workplace injuries. However, GM appears to have altered medical records to make it appear as though these workers incurred their injuries in daily life, not at work. An official at the Ministry of Labor, Luis Edgar Alvarado, was caught falsifying these documents. He was found guilty in this case, sanctioned, and currently has a warrant out for his arrest. Regardless of your thoughts on GM’s role in improving international labor standards, it’s clear that, in this case, GM is not even adhering legal norms.
Jason, I have been in facilities (not automotive) in the US that would make you go cry to your momma… This is not just in other countries, our factories can be fairly deplorable, no AC, 110 degrees, no masks for workers… Ect… You can’t believe it until you see it… Believe me it is out there, we need to open our minds to the truth in our own country…
If they had done all of those things except sew their mouths shut I’d agree with them, but seeing ten now makes ten look crazy they are looking for attention that they don’t deserve. I’m absolutely sure those are not the worst working conditions right now or even close.
Hunter, these folks have been peacefully protesting for a year already. This seems like their last stand.
yo soy jorge parra, una de las personas que por el desespero de vivir esta condicion y la gran injusticia que cometio General Motors y nuestro Ministerio de Trabajo con empleados corruptos tomamos la decision de cosernos la boca, por sentirnos completamente impotente ante esta situacion tan injusta, somos nosotros los que entregamos nuestra salud y nuestra vida para hacer de GM una empresa prospera, recuerden bien, que mientras GM se hundia en la crisis automotriz donde estaban en banca rota, la unica planta del mundo que siempre reporto ganancias fue la de Colombia, fue nuestro esfuerzo y nuestra salud la que dimos para que GM Colombia saliera adelante y nos pagan con el despido injusto y corrupto, recuerden muy bien que no solo se esta perjudicando al trabajador, tambien nuestra familias sufren estas injusticias, el hecho de hacer lo que hicimos de cosernos la boca es el resultado de nuestra desesperacion, al señor HUNTER le respondo: es muy facil criticar y desmentir, cuando la crisis no se vive en la carne, es muy facil hablar cuando no son tus hijos y tu famila las que no tienen que comer, sin contar con el dolor que produce tener hernias de columna y los brazos dañados cuando un dia fuiste productivo y fuerte y ahora solo queda la miseria y el olvido, señor Hunter, con respeto le digo, que usted no sabe lo que significa vivir asi, y lo que hicimos lo hacemos por nuestros hijos, nosotros no estamos haciendo un CIRCO, el Circo lo tiene montado este sistema capitalista e inhumano, NO PROTESTAMOS POR GUSTO, PROTESTAMOS POR JUSTICIA.
Translation: “I am Jorge Parra, one of the people who, out of the desperation of living this condition and the large injustice committed by General Motors and corrupt employees at our Ministry of Labor, took the decision to sew our mouths closed. We did it because we felt completely helpless in the face of such an unjust situation. We are the ones who gave away our health and our lives to make GM a prosperous company. Remember that while GM was going under during the auto crisis when everyone was going bankrupt, the only plant in the world that always reported profits was that of Colombia. It was our efforts and our health that we gave so that GM Colombia could stay afloat, and they paid us with unjust and corrupt firings. Remember very well that they’re not just harming the worker, but our families are also suffering these injustices. The fact that we did what we did by sewing our mouths closed is the result of our desperation. To Mr. HUNTER I respond: it’s very easy to criticize and deny when one doesn’t live it himself. It’s very easy to speak when they’re not your children and your family that have nothing to eat. Not to mention the pain produced by spinal disc herniation and damaged arms, by having one day been productive and strong but now having only misery and being forgotten. Mr. Hunter, with respect I say to you that you do not know what it means to live like this, and what we did we are doing for our children. We are not running a Circus; the Circus is run by this capitalist and inhumane system. WE ARE NOT PROTESTING FOR PLEASURE, WE ARE PROTESTING FOR JUSTICE.”
Can anyone see the horrible irony here? Just look at the disparity between working conditions in auto factories in the USA and in many plants such as these in Colombia. Colombia is an ally of the U.S. and it’s only truly positive that such hard working GM workers toil honestly and humbly building worldwide profit for the General and all it’s stockholders ( including the American people via our government’s vast investment ). Many in Colombia make their living in cartels, toiling in an entirely different way – manufacturing and distributing drugs into the countrys with much better working conditions.
GM just looks STUPID, and yes, I’ll repeat this here in a GM fansite, STUPID, to let these conditions exist for one minute. Why? Just look at our own labor history. Corruption like this, human rights abuses like this were reasons our historied labor unions were born. Organized labor won the battle against unjust working conditions and low pay plus many other unrighteous abuses rich overlords placed upon the working class. ENTER THE 20 and 21st century – where labor unions got too large, and too powerful – nearly able to decide who ran this country of ours. In the eighties and nineties, labor unions with their outlandish contracts and severence packages were nearly untouchable. Read the reams of stories re: GM plants with drunk workers, drinking and doing drugs on their many breaks and putting out garbage, some cars with the wrong engines in them – others with loose or unwelded structures. The car buyer went overseas and purchased reliable brands that lasted decades and cost little to maintain. Meanwhile, labor unions demanded Washington D.C. impose tariffs against these foreign companies. So the foreign companies just went to states where enemployment was high and got large subsidies to build car and truck factories. They hired non-union labor, and to keep the unions out, they payed them well and gave them very nice benefit packages. So today, the UAW is dying. The UAW membership is half what is was only a decade ago, and it’s numbers are down each year. Each year the UAW organizes protests in front of foreign car dealerships, and makes big pushes to sign these non-union factory workers into their unions. But the workers at the non-domestic plants are happy and satisfied. They looked at the modern history of huge unions and how they got greedy and lazy, always asking for more, but producing less. So today we have American workes building foreign cars on our own soil who feel they can sleep at night better than the old guard UAW workers who drove their “rights” into the ground – and many lost their jobs. This practically killed GM and Chrysler, and Ford would have died too, lest a big gamble at the bank by Ford’s CEO that paid off.
Today, the UAW has had to wake up – they have to produce quality cars and trucks to survive. It’s a consumer-driven world, not a UNION DRIVEN one. UAW workers picket their own plants because their leaders had to make some compromises such as wages paid to new workers and lower job security bylaws. Today it’s the middle class who seems tossed from wave to wave on the storm of our economy, but unions still try to force government and the private sector to kneel to them. It was so bad in the 20th century that the strongarm union leaders lived like rich Communist leaders in China while they forced more loyalty out of their strapped workers.
So the whole thing had to balance out. It took foreign car companies building their NA wares on our own soil. How can we all learn from this? Honda and Toyota are wise in paying and treating their workers well. It staves off unions and all the nonsense that makes them turn from good advocates to corrupt, lazy greed mongers. The consumer wins by getting quality products made by proud workers at an affordable price to the middle class.
In Colombia and Mexico, we see the same American companies brought to their knees by unions now abusing worker rights and acting like Communists themselves – full of corruption and greed to place unholy stresses on it’s meagerly payed workforce. HAVE THEY LEARNED NOTHING? APPARENTLY THE ANSWER IS YES! Make the workforce happy – and they will make you happy and profitable. Abuse your workforce and create the exact same environment that spawned the rise of American labor unions.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve belonged to unions and I have also been fired for representing one when I was younger. Many businesses without labor representation will use and abuse the peon doing all their hard work. Labor unions are necessary, productive and needed in many situations. It’s a balance. It would be great if for-profit companies all knew that if they gave proper human rights to their workers and showed some consideration for their well-being, they will profit. Too bad Apple and many electronics manufacturers didn’t get that memo as they do the human rights shuffle with factories in China and the Third World.
GM acts as if history did not happen, and as long as most of the world does not know what goes on in these foreign factories they can just profit of the blood and bodies of oppressed people.