Industrias Florenzi

Industrias Florenzi closed factory operations in July 2020. At the time of the closure, the factory failed to pay 207 workers the terminal compensation to which they were legally entitled: Under Salvadoran law, the factory owed the former employees unpaid wages, severance, and unpaid vacation and bonuses, as well as money that it deducted from workers’ paychecks for national healthcare and pension contributions, then unlawfully failed to deposit with these government programs.

For many months, Industrias Florenzi workers pressed the factory’s owner to pay them, with no response. The workers’ efforts culminated in early 2021 when they went on hunger strike for seven weeks.

Industrias Florenzi was a longtime manufacturer of Disney goods, producing for Disney’s licensee, Barco Uniforms, and also made garments for the Pierre Cardin brand. The WRC engaged Disney and its vendor, Barco, as well as Pierre Cardin, to urge these companies to fulfill their responsibility to ensure that the workers received the approximately $1.3 million they were owed in unpaid wages and severance.

In December 2021, the Industrias Florenzi buyer Barco Uniforms made a contribution of humanitarian aid to workers of more than $1 million, which was distributed in its entirety to the former workers. Read more about the resolution of this case.

Read More:

• “They Sewed ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Scrubs. Fighting Wage Theft Was its Own Drama.” Sourcing Journal – January 21, 2022
• Worker Rights Consortium and Worker Representatives Secure $1 Million Humanitarian Contribution from Barco Uniforms to Address Unpaid Severance at Closed Supplier Factory in El Salvador – December 23, 2021
• Testimony from Workers Who Benefitted from Barco’s Contribution of $1 Million – December 23, 2021
• $1.3 Million Wage Theft from Salvadoran Workers Who Made Disney/ABC-licensed Grey’s Anatomy Scrubs for Barco Uniforms – June 2, 2021
• Fired, Then Robbed: Fashion brands’ complicity in wage theft during Covid-19 – April 2021