A Fight for Union Choice at a Turkish Supplier Puts Levi’s in Hot Seat
For 80 consecutive days, nearly 500 workers from Özak Tekstil, one of Turkey’s largest apparel manufacturers, took to the streets of Urfa in Şanlıurfa Province, first for the right to choose their union, then for the jobs from which they say they were unfairly dismissed. Day after day, they said they fended off verbal and physical intimidation, attacks by law enforcement and arrests and subsequent detention.
But the situation has gone beyond the oversimplified but somewhat typical narrative of “bad factory, good workers” or even “bad brand.” Özak Tekstil, whose Urfa plant counts Levi Strauss & Co. as its sole buyer, has an existing union in the form of Öz İplik-İş, an IndustriALL Global Union and IndustriALL European Trade Union affiliate that has brokered collective bargaining agreements for Özak Tekstil’s 1,300 employees, of whom 400 remain in Urfa and 500 at a factory in Istanbul.
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In November, however, Birtek-Sen, a relatively upstart organization representing textile, weaving and leather workers unleashed a thunderous campaign, both online and off, blaming Özak Tekstil, Öz İplik-İş and Levi’s for ignoring workers’ struggles with excessive production pressures and the systematic and routine verbal abuse known as mobbing.
“We did not work in humane conditions,” said Funda Bakis, a five-year Özak veteran and one of the Birtek-Sen defectors. “Sometimes we had to work until 3 a.m. and then come into work the next day at 8 a.m., but if we complained about overtime, the boss would threaten to cut our compensation. We had no work safety whatsoever. There were nails, hair and worms in our food. When we discussed these issues with our union representative, she told us, ‘Don’t expect everything from us; we can’t solve everything.’”
‘Disturbing’ the peace
Turkey isn’t fertile ground for freedom of association to begin with. Nearly 85 percent of its 16 million workers lack union representation, according to data from its Ministry of Labour. In a country consistently rated by the International Trade Union Confederation’s Global Rights Index as one of the 10 worst places for working people because of systematic union busting and police crackdowns, Özak Tekstil was considered progressive, if not for promoting collective bargaining then at least for not suppressing it. Öz İplik-İş itself was viewed as one of the few groups fighting for effective social dialogue.
Fulya Pinar Özcan, head of international relations and sustainability at Öz İplik-İş, has vigorously pushed back against the demonstrators, whom she sees as “disturbing” a peace that her union has battled long and hard for. Due to its smaller roster, Birtek-Sen isn’t able to negotiate the collective bargaining agreements that are the hard currency of improving workers’ circumstances, she said.
Özcan said that Öz İplik-İş had planned to ignore the so-called rabble-rousers and focus on doing its job, but the issue quickly blew up, with international media coverage and entreaties to the European Parliament that made letting the matter exhaust itself untenable.
“We read them,” she said of the worker statements to European lawmakers. “There is no truth because our union is fighting against violence and harassment. And the problem is our union didn’t get any complaints about any of the things that were there. I was shocked to see what they were talking about.” Özak Tekstil did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
‘Not how a union should act’
Workers say that the problems at Özak Tekstil are longstanding—this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to change unions—but that things came to a head after a pair of earthquakes shook southern and central Turkey in February 2023, leaving more than 50,000 people dead and 100,000 injured. They claim that the factory, enabled by “additional pressure” from Öz İplik-İş, forced them to restart work within three days.
Months later, tired of dealing with what they disparaged as a “yellow” union controlled by their employer, disgruntled workers submitted their resignations from Öz İplik-İş and signed up with Birtek-Sen. Even the collective bargaining agreement, which accords workers in Istanbul a better deal than those in Urfa, is a facade, they say.
“Öz İplik İş does not ask, inform or consult workers when it signs collective agreements,” said Özlem Temena, a representative from Birtek-Sen. “Workers do not vote for or approve the collective agreement in any way.”
Things got worse after workers made the switch, they say, with female employees singled out for harassment and interrogation. Women had always been an easy target, said Şeyma Çavur, a four-year Özak worker. “Women were constantly insulted, being called blind, stupid or mentally challenged,” she said. “Once, they even called a male worker a ‘bastard dog,’ and he left without taking compensation. When we complained, [Öz İplik İş] said, ‘Deal with your own problems.’ This is not how a union should act.”
On a day in November, hundreds of workers marched out of the factory after a colleague, Seher Gülel, was fired, ostensibly for mistakes on the production floor but she says was the result of unlawful retaliation for her work with Birtek-Sen. Gülel said she was told to resign or have her reputation dragged through the mud, but she refused.
“They chose me as a sacrifice, but I didn’t remain silent, and my worker friends also stood by my side,” she said in an emailed statement. “This is not just our resistance; it is the resistance of all workers victimized by [their] employers. Workers keep a factory standing, but there was no union to keep the workers standing.”
The resistance grows
By the following month, more than 80 percent of the Urfa plant’s workforce had transferred allegiances, allowing Birtek-Sen to achieve a majority that it says should give it the right of representation under international standards. Instead, what followed, according to workers, was an escalation in hostility, abuse and threats of violence and termination by both factory management and Öz İplik-İş to leave their chosen union.
The throng of demonstrators swelled to 470, creating a blockade that led the local gendarmerie to use water cannons, pepper spray, riot shields and batons to dispel the crowd. At least 150 protestors, including several Birtek-Sen officials, wound up in custody as the strike wore on. Many also reported injuries. The Turkish Bar Association later declared law enforcement’s actions on the workers as unconstitutional.
“The gendarmerie used pressurized water,” said Mahmut Tahta, one of the demonstrators. “One of our female colleagues was injured. The intervention seemed to be ordered from higher authorities. We took the injured to the hospital ourselves as the ambulance was busy attending to others.”
A mass dismissal
Two weeks into the strike, Özak Tekstil let all of them go, albeit with severance for those who qualified. The workers accepted it because they needed the money, said Mehmet Türkmen, head of Birtek-Sen. Protesting is expensive work and it’s for this reason that the physical “Özak resistance” ended last month after a brief move to Istanbul with a smaller group of demonstrators. But the struggle continues, Türkmen said, and Birtek-Sen’s entreaties haven’t changed. In addition to recognizing the union’s legitimacy, the factory should put workers “back to work again,” he said. He fears, however, that they’ve been blacklisted from the garment trade, since some have expressed difficulties finding similar positions.
Özcan questions if the workers want their jobs back, saying that you can’t reinstate someone who doesn’t want to work.
“They were not dismissed because of the union choice,” she said. “They were dismissed because they didn’t come to work. The employer said, ‘Come to work,’ and they didn’t come. If the employer wanted to dismiss the workers, they would never have made a call to them to come back to work.”
Members of the international labor rights community have privately characterized the situation as delicate, to say the least. Most of the leading organizations—the Clean Clothes Campaign, the Worker Rights Consortium, and IndustriALL Global Union, among them—work closely and in solidarity, and nobody wants to take a swing at an ally.
The Clean Clothes Campaign, which collaborated with Birtek-Sen on a report about the earthquake’s aftermath on workers, has posted about the Özak Tekstil protest on social media without mentioning Öz İplik-İş or IndustriALL. A draft version of an upcoming report by the Worker Rights Consortium, or WRC, which concludes that Özak Tekstil violated the legal rights of its Urfa employees and therefore Levi’s supplier code of conduct, names Öz İplik İş without referencing IndustriALL. Its focus is on Özak Tekstil’s behavior, Öz İplik-İş’s reported lapses in protecting workers’ interests and the legality of the worker dismissals under Turkish and international law. IndustriALL declined to comment.
“WRC’s forthcoming report will detail the working conditions and freedom of association violations we documented in the course of our investigation as well as our recommendations for adequate remedy, including the reinstatement of unlawfully terminated workers,” said Liana Foxvog, director of supply chain strategies at the Washington, D.C.-based organization.
Levi’s big decision
All eyes are also on how Levi’s will act. The allegations leveled by Birtek-Sen violate several tenets of the jean juggernaut’s supplier code of conduct, including employing disciplinary action to punish workers for exercising their rights, paying severance to discourage workers from exercising those same rights, threatening the use of harmful physical contact, and preventing workers from joining organizations of their choosing.
Still, the denim giant hasn’t offered much clarity to either Öz İplik-İş or Birtek-Sen, both say, and there are genuine concerns that it might pull out of Özak Tekstil after the publication of the WRC’s report, which would be the Urfa facility’s undoing. Such a move could also precipitate an exodus of brands from the Istanbul plant, which counts Zara owner Inditex and Hugo Boss as buyers.
A Levi’s spokesperson would only say that it “continue[s] to talk to Özak management about what the future will look like.” No word, so far, on what Inditex might do. A representative from Hugo Boss says the brand is monitoring the situation and will “immediately take measures” if it discovers its code of conduct is not being adhered to.
“If Levi’s stopped production here, what will happen to 900 workers? They will be unemployed based on the accusations, based on this decision of the WRC,” Özcan said of the remaining Urfa and Istanbul employees. “Levi’s never wanted to come to talk to us. And if Levi’s leaves, maybe the others will leave.”
Türkmen said, however, that a Levi’s withdrawal is Özak Tekstil’s problem and that workers only want to change their deplorable conditions. He said it is his understanding that Levi’s has, following an investigation, requested the rehiring of the sacked workers and engagement in dialogue with Birtek-Sen, with no success. A termination of Levi’s relationship with Özak Tekstil is the “last thing we want,” he wrote in a letter to the Red Tab purveyor’s leadership in January.
“We are in favor of this factory continuing its production,” Türkmen continued. “However, this production cannot continue by disregarding the most fundamental rights of workers, such as freedom of expression, freedom of association and the right to choose a union.”
Severing ties, however, should be a last resort, he added.
Who’s the yellow union?
Özcan said that the furor was never about union choice and that Birtek-Sen was the one threatening workers with the disclosure of personal information—a dangerous move in what has been dubbed the Turkish capital of “honor killings”—to provoke them to strike. She thinks that any lingering demonstrators are staying because they’ve been promised more money. Most of all, Özcan thinks that a shutdown of Özak Tekstil’s factories would be a blow to freedom of association in Turkey by creating a further fracturing of the union landscape.
An audit by the Ministry of Labour in December, she added, found no violation of freedom of association at the Urfa plant, that the work stoppage was against the law and that Birtek-Sen has no authority to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. This “legally published decision” should be taken into account by brands and other stakeholders, Özcan said.
“If you want to call a union yellow you can call this small union yellow,” she said. “I mean, this is obviously a pressure [tactic] for Levi’s to sit down with a small union. This is an example of reducing union power as well.”
Even so, the WRC’s embargoed evidence, which is based on on-the-ground interviews and a review of factory documentation, is compelling. And one thing that’s clear is the fact that Birtek-Sen will not be cowed. It wants the ousted Özak workers to return to their old jobs, wages paid for every day of the protest, respect for employees’ right to choose a union, and the signing of a “mutual protocol” that guarantees those demands.
“Our boss made a big mistake,” Bakis said. “He has to listen to us. He has to listen to our union.”
Türkmen derided a recent “trick” by the manufacturer to transfer its assets to Kübrateks, another subsidiary of its parent company Özak Global Holding, in a bid to shake off a “tarnished” name.
“The owners are the same, they are just changing the name,” Birtek-Sen wrote on its website. “They want to improve the image of the factory and get orders from international brands in this way. However, this is a way to deceive both workers and brands.”
Maybe Levi’s will exit Urfa, but maybe the resistance will redefine what true corporate responsibility looks like throughout the industry, Türkmen said. It’s his union’s job, he said, to ensure that its members are not harmed but engaged in an environment of mutual trust, respect and democracy.
“What they have to understand is we have to change the workers’ conditions in Turkey,” he added.
