Istanbul
CNN
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Levi’s is a worldwide model that says it has all the time stood up for “what’s proper.” However its declare to be an moral firm is now in query following the discharge of a report from an unbiased labor monitoring group.
Critics accuse Levi’s (LEVI) of ignoring its personal labor requirements after it continued working with a manufacturing unit in Turkey that fired round 400 folks final 12 months after they joined a union and went on strike over pay and dealing situations.
Turkey is a vital hyperlink within the international provide chain for attire. The nation exported round $30 billion value of attire and textiles final 12 months, in line with the Istanbul Exporters’ Affiliation, a clothes trade group.
One participant within the trade is Ozak Tekstil’s manufacturing unit in Turkey’s Sanliurfa area, which solely makes denims for Levi’s. Ozak Tekstil additionally produces clothes in its different factories in Turkey for manufacturers reminiscent of Zara, Hugo Boss, Guess, Mango and Ralph Lauren, in line with the report by the Employee Rights Consortium (WRC), revealed Friday.
Seher Gulel labored in high quality management on the manufacturing unit earlier than she was fired in late November. She was paid Turkey’s minimal wage, she instructed CNN, which on the time was about $15 a day. Strain, bullying and insults by managers had been frequent, she says, and excessively lengthy days had been frequent. She would usually work from 8 a.m. till midnight and even into the early morning hours — despite the fact that, beneath Turkish regulation, employees shouldn’t work greater than 11 hours in a day.
“The (unlawful) extra time drawback was fixed,” she stated.
Ozak Tekstil stated its extra time hours and funds had been throughout the regulation.
Months into the job Gulel had had sufficient. She joined a brand new union, Birtek-Sen, switching from one other one, which she says was ineffective and “all the time pro-boss.” (The union denies this).
Inside 10 days of becoming a member of Birtek-Sen, she was fired for what Ozak Tekstil known as “high quality management errors.” Her dismissal offered the spark for a whole lot of employees on the manufacturing unit to stroll off the job, in line with the WRC report and Gulel.
The employees had been on strike for a bit of over two weeks when Ozak Tekstil made good its menace to fireside those that refused to return to work. Roughly 400 had been dismissed in mid-December — nearly half the manufacturing unit’s workers.
“We had been searching for justice,” Gulel instructed CNN. “However we received injustice.
Ozak Tekstil instructed CNN it had terminated the employees “as a final resort” once they declined an invite to return to work. It additionally stated that, whereas a Turkish regulation enshrines the appropriate to strike, beneath the identical regulation, Birtek-Sen didn’t have sufficient members to collectively discount and set up a strike.
“For the reason that day the manufacturing unit was based, employees’ proper to unionize has all the time been revered,” Ozak Tekstil stated.
Nonetheless, the WRC report says: “The labor regulation additionally flatly prohibits employers from firing employees for putting, even within the case of an unlawful strike, except the nation’s labor courts have first dominated that the strike in query is illegal.” A courtroom did rule that the strike had been unlawful however the ruling didn’t come till 5 months after the firings.
In an e mail between Levi’s and the Birtek-Sen union, shared with CNN by the WRC, Levi’s acknowledged that the mass firings violated its personal provider code of conduct, which states that its factories “shall respect the appropriate to free affiliation and the appropriate to prepare and discount collectively with out illegal interference.” Importantly for Gulel’s case, the code additionally dictates that suppliers should guarantee employees who be a part of the union “will not be the thing of discrimination, harassment, or punitive disciplinary actions.”
In that e mail, dated December 22, 2023, the corporate additionally stated it had instructed Ozak Tekstil to reinstate the employees. If it refused, “we can be pressured to take the suitable subsequent steps to uphold employees’ rights,” Levi’s wrote.
‘Meaningless’ requirements
However Ozak Tekstil didn’t do what Levi’s was asking. It didn’t reinstate all the fired employees. The corporate instructed CNN it had supplied many of the employees their jobs again (however with out the appropriate to proceed with the strike), however solely a handful had accepted the provide.
On April 1, months after the mass dismissals, Levi’s wrote to the WRC reconfirming that its code of conduct had been violated however including that it was “much less clear that exiting Ozak and probably placing a further 400 folks out of labor within the course of is how we should always proceed.”
That is how WRC govt director Scott Nova summarized the state of affairs: “The manufacturing unit stated no, and Levi’s ultimately stated, ‘nicely, okay, we’ll offer you enterprise anyway.’” He known as the firings “some of the brazen, outrageous violations” of employees’ proper to strike that he’d seen wherever in years.
“The message Levi’s is sending to all of its suppliers globally — of which there are a lot of a whole lot — is that Levi’s labor requirements are meaningless. However despite the fact that Levi’s says factories need to respect the rights of employees, what Levi’s actually desires is reasonable blue denims produced shortly whatever the penalties for the employees who make them,” Nova stated.
In a press release to CNN, Levi’s stated it had “a longstanding dedication to supporting secure, productive workplaces for employees, and we take any allegations of efforts to curtail freedom of affiliation extraordinarily critically.” It stated it continued sourcing denims from the manufacturing unit regardless of the mass firings, to keep away from additional job losses, however the continuation of its relationship with the provider relies upon “on administration’s success of an in depth remediation plan that addresses freedom of affiliation, working hours, and well being and security.”
As for Gulel’s allegations of extreme extra time and abusive managers on the manufacturing unit, Levi’s didn’t reply to CNN’s requests for remark.
Hugo Boss instructed CNN it was “monitoring the accusations” on the Levi’s plant in Sanliurfa. “Ozak has confirmed that it complies with our social requirements, that are obligatory for a enterprise relationship with Hugo Boss, and {that a} commerce union has been energetic within the firm for over 10 years,” stated Carolin Westermann, a spokesperson for the German model.
Whereas most fired employees obtained a severance fee, many are actually struggling to discover a job — and which may be on account of one thing else they obtained from Ozak Tekstil: an efficient black mark in a publicly accessible authorities database.
Gulel has been out of labor for seven months and former union rep Funda Bakis, who was fired in mid-December, for greater than six. They each say they’re now “blacklisted.”
Based on Gulel’s dismissal discover seen by CNN, the official cause for her firing acknowledged within the database is “code 50,” which implies the worker “endangers the protection of the job on account of (their) personal will or negligence, causes harm and loss to the machines … to the extent that (they) can not repay with the quantity of (their) 30-day wage.” As for Bakis, she was given “code 46,” which signifies habits “reminiscent of abusing the employer’s belief, stealing, revealing the employer’s skilled secrets and techniques.”
Ozak Tekstil didn’t reply to CNN’s query on why it had chosen these codes, past insisting the firings had been justified. Nor did Levi’s reply to CNN’s request for touch upon this challenge.
Bakis has moved in along with her mother and father and lives alongside greater than 10 different folks in a three-bedroom condominium, amounting to about 100 sq. meters (1,076 sq. toes) of area. Seasonal farm work might now be her solely employment possibility.
“We anticipated extra from Levi’s than from Ozak, as a result of it’s a global firm and a model that talks quite a bit about humane working situations,” she stated, noting that a few of her buddies who had additionally been fired by the manufacturing unit in December had “youngsters at dwelling who had been hungry.”
Based on WRC researchers, who’ve been in contact with Levi’s for months, the corporate has no plans to supply financial help or compensation to any of the fired employees.
Ozak Tekstil stated the mass dismissals in December had “nothing to do with working hours or wages.”
“Ozak Tekstil is without doubt one of the firms that employs personnel in one of the best working situations and pays the best wages within the textile trade within the (Sanliurfa) area,” it added.
Gulel and Bakis beg to vary. They’re amongst 21 former workers who’re suing Ozak Tekstil for again pay — together with unpaid extra time, severance pay, vacation pay and for engaged on weekends and nationwide holidays. They’re additionally looking for additional compensation as a result of they declare they had been fired on account of their union ties, in line with the lawyer for the group. Ozak Tekstil denies this.
“In spite of everything these rights violations, they took away our bread, they took away our jobs. They didn’t depart something undone to us, simply because we had been demanding our rights. However justice by no means prevailed. I hope it does to any extent further,” Bakis stated.
Tanem Zaman, Eyad Kourdi and Brice Laine contributed to this text.