At the beginning of March 2015 the Turkish Union of Textile, Knitting and Clothing Industry Workers TEKSIF reported that management at the Hugo Boss factory in Izmir was continuing to sack union members and supporters. The attacks on the union began shortly after it started to organise workers three years earlier.
Long drawn-out court processes proved 20 trade union supporters sacked between 2011 and 2014 had been illegally dismissed. A further eight cases were still pending in court in early 2015. After the High Court of Appeals confirmed that those workers were dismissed by HUGO BOSS because of their union membership and ordered their reinstatement, however, management opted to pay them extra compensation instead.
The sackings didn’t stop. Management dismissed three more key union supporters in February 2015. At no stage throughout the process did the Izmir management of HUGO BOSS accept offers from TEKSIF to resolve the issues through social dialogue, and there was no intervention from international management either. When Industriall, the global union to which TEKSIF is affiliated, contacted the HUGO BOSS CEO in August 2014 to request his intervention to ensure an end to the violations and the start of constructive social dialogue at the plant, the response was to threaten legal action and to deny all responsibility.