Since early April, immigrant workers in the Tuscan city of Prato have staged a wave of strikes demanding their right to a forty-hour work week, or “8×5.”

Organized by the union SUDD Cobas, these walkouts, dubbed “Strike Days,” have directly involved seventy textile and garment factories in Europe’s biggest textile manufacturing hub. Highly successful, these simultaneous strikes have now won 8×5 — eight-hour days, five days a week — in sixty-eight fashion workshops and warehouses, all within the span of fourteen weeks.

These victories are the result of seven years of organizing in one of Italy’s most infamous industrial zones. Prato is estimated to host over seven thousand textile and garment companies, employing forty-three thousand people. Workers are typically hired by small companies engaged in distinct phases of fashion production — specializing in dyeing thread, twisting yarn, printing fabric, sewing T-shirts, or even moving hangers between establishments. Together, these activities generate almost €2 billion in annual export revenue, making Prato an important hub of world-famous “Made in Italy” fashion.