ABSTRACT
On August 1, 2012, Jorge Parra carefully applied sterilizer to his mouth and the area surrounding his mouth before piercing his lips with a needle and systematically sewing his mouth shut. Exactly one year prior, former General Motor (GM) employees began picketing the U.S. embassy in Bogatá, Colombia to protest having been fi red after suffering debilitating injuries on the job. Many of the injuries reported by former employees of GM Colmotores outside Bogotá “stem from repetitive movements, lifting excessive weights, harmful body postures, and an accelerated work pace on the assembly line” (Luft, 2012). Such injuries make it diffi cult for ex-GM employees to fi nd work elsewhere, thus leaving the ex-workers and their families without electricity, water, food, or a home. Following a year of picketing in relative anonymity, thirteen men initiated a hunger strike. Seven of them recorded themselves sewing their mouths shut, as they proclaimed that they are “totally prepared to die” (Cavaliere, 2012). The video shows the workers puncturing their lips with needles and methodically pulling thread through their lips to seal their mouths shut. Images of the sewn workers’ faces quickly circulated through both Colombian and international media. Within three weeks, the images and a video produced by the strikers had prompted solidarity hunger strikes throughout the Americas and Europe, and played a role in compelling GM to begin negotiations with the strikers.
