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Background on Hey Tekstil, Turkey

Li & Fung, one of the largest apparel sourcing companies in the world, is refusing to pay 2.038 Hey Tekstil workers in Turkey 4.7 million EUR of overdue wages, severance, and notification payments. The conflict began in February 2012 when the last 420 of 3.000 workers from the Turkish apparel company Hey Tekstil Sanayi ve Ticaret L.Ş. were fired from the company’s Istanbul factory without notice. The workers got organized and decided to take action. At the time of the closure, workers were producing clothes for such brands as Esprit and Disney, which placed their orders through Li & Fung. For the last two years, Li & Fung had 80-90% of the production at Hey Tekstil factories, according to former Hey Tekstil representatives.

Hong Kong company Li & Fung refuses to pay workers

We urge you to support 420 struggling workers in Turkey who have been staging a picket line in front of Li & Fung for three months. These workers were employed by a company called Hey Tekstil. From November 2011 to February 2012, the company did not pay them for their last three months of work, fired them without notice, and subsequently failed to pay them their legally-mandated severance and notification payments.

Day 230 in the picket line: Esprit involved in Hey Tekstil severance case

Hong Kong-based brand Esprit was a big buyer from the Hey Tekstil factory in the months before closure last February. An estimated 80-90% of the clothes made at Hey Tekstil in Turkey were for Esprit. Sacked workers are still waiting for back wages in the picket line in Istanbul.

Esprit and Li & Fung leave Hey Tekstil workers hanging

For over eight months groups of Hey Tekstil workers have protested in Istanbul for their unpaid wages, severance and other payments from Li & Fung, one of the world’s largest garment trading companies. Li & Fung was sourcing almost all of the production at Hey Tekstil for one brand: Esprit, when the workers were fired without pay.

Esprit and Li&Fung target of international street actions

An international call for action from the Clean Clothes Campaign last week led to protests in cities around the world. In Istanbul, Chiang Mai and Hong Kong workers protested against the failure of Esprit and its agent Li&Fung to pay €4.7 million Euro owed to more than 2000 people who became jobless after the factory closed. 'These actions are only the beginning of our campaign to make Esprit and Li & Fung pay up,' says Ineke Zeldenrust, International Coordinator at Clean Clothes Campaign.