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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.
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.