“I made this item you are going to buy but I didn’t get paid for it”

Notes with statements like the one above written on them are being found sewn into clothes sold under the brands Zara, Mango and Next and distributed at stores around the global north. Reports say they were written by factory workers in Istanbul, employed by the major brands.

Overnight, the factory that makes the clothing for Zara’s parent company, Indetix, was shut down, leaving employees out of work. In addition, some employees were reportedly underpaid for the previous several months.

Amancio Ortega Gaona, the man who founded Indetix, became the third richest person in the world in 2012, worth $74.5 billion as of 2017.