Official eats his finger in protest

A union leader in Serbia cut off his finger and ate it to protest unpaid wages.

Zoran Bulatovic, who leads the union at the Raska Holding textile factory in Novi Pazar, told Reuters that he used a hacksaw to chop off most of the little finger on his left hand last Friday.

Bulatovic said: "We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example. It hurt like hell.

"[My deputy], a single mother of three, was the first to say she would cut off her finger. I could not allow her to do that."

Some of the 100 workers at the factory have not been paid in years and receive only social benefits such as medical care.

Workers, who went on a 19-day hunger strike last year, are calling for the implementation of a welfare programme for those approaching retirement and for the company's debt to be exchanged for state-held equity.

Sounds like they've been treated horribly, but eating your finger. Really?