http://libcom.org/news/samsung-workers-mexico-hunger-strike-solidarity-needed-16072011__

Four female workers, unfairly fired and victims of workplace abuse, have caged themselves and sewn their lips shut as they launch a hunger strike and one threatens to burn herself alive in a dramatic protest against the multinational corporation Samsung.

Original here: http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/accion-urgente-solidaridad-dramatica-protesta-trabajadoras-manzanillo-

More info (Spanish): http://www.cilas.org/

UNHEARD-OF VIOLATION OF THE LABOUR AND HUMAN RIGHTS OF WORKERS OF THE KOREAN BUSINESS

WE MUST PREVENT THIS RIGHTFUL PROTEST BECOMING A TRAGEDY

Four female workers, unfairly fired and victims of workplace abuse, have caged themselves and sewn their lips shut as they launch a hunger strike and threatens to burn herself alive in a dramatic protest against the multinational corporation Samsung,funded by Korean capital which is currently constructing a plant for the extraction of natural gas in the Mexican port of Manzanillo, in the state of Colima.

Madaí Díaz Rodríguez, Sandra Gómez, Lourdes Zamora y Elvira Orozco worked in the kitchen of the Ingeniería Civil construction company, subcontracted by the multinational and whilst working were victims of constant abuse and mistreatment which escalated to daily verbal and physical violence from their Korean bosses and foremen. To these facts there can also be added multiple instances of arbitrary treatment and labour abuses such as the imposition of 12-hour days, with no pay for the extra hours which were their legal right. This situation is a daily reality for the hundreds of workers who lend their services to the aforementioned company.

The inhuman and degrading conditions imposed on both male and female workers have already resulted in a diversity of protests, including a strike, without any affect on the violation of human and labour rights. On the 3rd June of last year, Madaí Díaz, a single mother workign as a cook, initiated the protests against the abitrary sacking and beatings dealt out to her by Korean employees. In the first instance she locked herself in a cage and sewed shut her lips, before days later caging herself again along with her two children, after which she officially denounced her aggressors, an accusation that has not had any effect.

Last July 6 the compañera Madaí, who had been reinstalled, was once again attacked and thrown out of work; failing to receive a positive response to her demands for justice from either the labour authorities or her union, she returned to the cage, accompanied by her workmates who had also been fired. They are currently on hunger strike and have sewn their lips shut. Furthermore, Madaí has declared her readiness to take the extreme action of setting herself on fire in the event of receiving an unsatisfactory answer to her demands.

It must be mentioned that the construction of the gas plant in Manzanillo has itself provoked multiple instances of rejection, both for the serious environmental effects it will impose on the coastal and lagoon region into which it will be embedded, and for those that it will cause to the economy and life of the fishing towns of the zone.

As can be observed, this is a situation of serious conflict and the potential exists or it to worsen, with even greater effects on the health, physical integrity and life of the compañeras in protest. All this is caused, needles to say, by the violatory and merciless infringement of every human and labour norm on the part of the transnational business and its representatives.

Faced with the events related herein, the solidarity of all organizations is an urgent necessity. Coordinated and determined action is required to oblige the bosses of this transnational to desist from their arbitrary actions, to demand that the governmental authorities that cease their indolence and intervene to achieve a solution and, above all, to prevent a dramatic end to this conflict.

We ask all organizations to declare their demands through the sending of communiqués to the following: