Levi’s manufacturing supplier lays off hundreds of workers at Türkiye factory

Ms Funda Bakis of the Workers Union, “We can’t even afford to pay for the same pair of trousers we produce”

Workers complained about long working hours, sometimes up to 20 hours, low wages and poor working conditions.

June 28, 2024. – Levi’s is a global brand that claims to always stand up for “the right thing.” But the company’s claim to be an ethical company is now in question following a report by an independent labor watchdog group, according to CNN’s The Edition.

Critics have accused Levi Strauss & Co. of ignoring its own labor standards after it continued to work with a factory in Turkey that laid off about 400 employees last year after they unionized and went on strike over wages and working conditions.

Turkey is a key link in the global clothing supply chain. Last year, the country exported about $30 billion worth of clothing and textiles, according to the Istanbul Exporters Association, a textile industry group.

One of the players in the industry is the Ozak Tekstil factory in Turkey’s Sanliurfa region, which produces jeans exclusively for Levi’s. Ozak Tekstil also produces clothing for brands such as Zara, Hugo Boss, Guess, Mango and Ralph Lauren at other factories in Turkey, according to a report released on Friday by the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC).

Seher Gulel was in charge of quality control at the factory and was fired in late November. He told CNN that he was paid Turkey’s minimum wage, which was about $15 a day at the time. He said pressure, harassment and insults from managers were frequent, and that long working hours were common. He often worked from 8 a.m. to midnight or even the early hours, but under Turkish law, workers are not allowed to work more than 11 hours a day.

“The problem of (illegal) overtime has always been there,” he said.

Ozark TexStill said his overtime pay and wages were legal.

After a few months on the job, Guler had had enough. She joined a new union, Birtek-Sen, and left another union she considered inefficient and “always in favor of the boss.” (The union denies this.)

Ten days after joining Birtek-Sen, she was fired for what Ozak Tekstil called a “quality control error.” His dismissal caused hundreds of factory workers to abandon their jobs, according to the WRC and Gulel report.