Posted on 09/25/2003 9:21:58 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
San Francisco blue jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. said Thursday it would close its remaining North America manufacturing and finishing plants, firing nearly 2,000 employees in the process, or about 11 percent of its global workforce.
The news comes days after the company said it would cut bout 350 salaried jobs in the U.S., with about 300 additional jobs cut in Europe in an effort to reduce costs in the face of reduced product pricing.
In April 2002, Levi Strauss closed six of its eight U.S. manufacturing plants, including its oldest on Valencia Street in San Francisco. The closures pink slipped 3,300 employees, or 20 percent of Levi's worldwide workforce.
The sewing plants closed in three phases and included four in Texas, and one in Georgia.
During that 2002 round of closures, there were 100 layoffs in San Francisco, where Levi had made jeans in its Mission District facility since 1906. The closures were part of Levi's turnaround plan, which involves getting out of manufacturing to focus on marketing. The company has been losing sales and profits for half a decade and has shifted manufacturing to offshore contractors like many of its competitors.
The remaining two U.S. plants were in San Antonio Texas.
And you called me a loon?
Too much Beck in you belly, my friend. Switch to something lighter.
I shall no longer reply to you on this thread.
| Year | Ann Avg |
|---|---|
| 1948 | 3.8 |
| 1949 | 5.9 |
| 1950 | 5.3 |
| 1951 | 3.3 |
| 1952 | 3.0 |
| 1953 | 2.9 |
| 1954 | 5.5 |
| 1955 | 4.4 |
| 1956 | 4.1 |
| 1957 | 4.3 |
| 1958 | 6.8 |
| 1959 | 5.5 |
| 1960 | 5.5 |
| 1961 | 6.7 |
| 1962 | 5.5 |
| 1963 | 5.7 |
| 1964 | 5.2 |
| 1965 | 4.5 |
| 1966 | 3.8 |
| 1967 | 3.8 |
| 1968 | 3.6 |
| 1969 | 3.5 |
| 1970 | 4.9 |
| 1971 | 5.9 |
| 1972 | 5.6 |
| 1973 | 4.9 |
| 1974 | 5.6 |
| 1975 | 8.5 |
| 1976 | 7.7 |
| 1977 | 7.1 |
| 1978 | 6.1 |
| 1979 | 5.8 |
| 1980 | 7.1 |
| 1981 | 7.6 |
| 1982 | 9.7 |
| 1983 | 9.6 |
| 1984 | 7.5 |
| 1985 | 7.2 |
| 1986 | 7.0 |
| 1987 | 6.2 |
| 1988 | 5.5 |
| 1989 | 5.3 |
| 1990 | 5.6 |
| 1991 | 6.8 |
| 1992 | 7.5 |
| 1993 | 6.9 |
| 1994 | 6.1 |
| 1995 | 5.6 |
| 1996 | 5.4 |
| 1997 | 4.9 |
| 1998 | 4.5 |
| 1999 | 4.2 |
| 2000 | 4.0 |
| 2001 | 4.7 |
| 2002 | 5.8 |
:-)
Should we demand minimum wage for everyone? This will just turn America into another third world cesspool. Who will pay the bills? Who will buy the products? This isn't what America was built on.
You're not seeing the forest for the trees here. Look beyond the idealogical mask and see what is going on in society.
There is a large segment of the population absolutely addicted to Government handouts. If the unemployment rate goes to 20%, one of two things will happen. The tax rate will increase to exhorbitant levels (like 90%) to pay bennies -or- the bennies get cut off and all hell breaks loose on the streets. My money is on the tax increase of epic proportions.
This will not be your grandfather's depression where people politely got into breadlines and peacefully travelled the country looking for work. It will be bloody and violent as order breaks down because Sally Streetwalker doesn't get her "entitlement" that she has a "right" to and takes to the streets with a few thousand of her favorite buddies to protest the so-called "rich" and demand a piece of YOUR pie.
That's the corner we're painted into right now. Either we have lots of jobs to keep the monthly bennie-crack checks flowing, or we don't and all these people are loosed upon the streets to rob you blind quite legally at the ballot box.
Doesn't sound too fun to me.
Then let's not castigate others as being deliberatly selective of bad news when bad news is primarily whats available. Capice?
The posts on FR, icluding this thread, give a distorted picture as well.
And you have declined to balance that out with reports you claim exist, an unsubstantiated claim, until you prove 'distortion', as opposed to 'reflection'.
Finally, management and the "rich" are singled out as the culprits of all evil.
That is your straw man argument. No one here categorically blames all management and all rich as evil, just like you don't categorically defend them all as innocent.
Yeah, but what happens when you put them on?
Janet: Should we demand minimum wage for everyone?
What is the connection here? Any at all? As a mother you tell your child, "I cannot increase your allowance," and the child replies, "So, you don't want to give me allowance at all." Your reply amounts to the same thing.
A salary is justified if it is supported by productivity; that is, by wealth created. If you make 5 gadgets in an hour, and the company sells them for $20 each, you get, say, $10 in salary, and the owner gets $10 as return on his investment. If you make the same number of gadgets but the company sells them for $15 each, less wealth is created, and both you and the owner cannot be paid. That may happen because the demand for your product declined (say, a substitute for it has been found), or simply because the buyers have less ability to pay for it.
If you increase prodactivity to 6 gadgets per hour, and the company is able to sell your output, you can participate more in the wealth created and receive a higher salary.
Productivity fluctuates. When the salaries go up, you do not hear any admiration of management expressed in the press and by the public at large. Now we are in a period where less wealth is created. The salaries go down, and all the b----g in the word and cursing of management has been unleashed.
You missed the point, although I stated it clearly in the previous post: by historical standards, we are doing fine; the situation is being misrepresented by the loud voices we hear.
I do not need an explanation that at 20% unemployment indeed becomes a social problem.
No, this supposition is false. Knowlege of these matters is not found in the news, whether good or bad. Courses and books on management and economics are available. If one does not want to avail himself of these, then one should at least suspend jugment.
You premise that bad newpapers "news" must be balanced by "good" false.<
This is factually incorrect. On plenty of threads, including this one, people routinely blame the situation on "the privileged few," the "fat cats," "the rich," etc.
The accusations also go very far --- no less than selling out the country.
Finally, practically not a person points out that such acusations are both factually incorrect, and it does become clear very quickly that those who repeat the socialist mantra are indeed very ignorant of both management and economics. When I do, people usually turn on me, suggesting that I must be getting money from China, that I do not care because my own job is secure, whatever else --- without knowing a single bit about my own situation.
These are not impressions; these are verifable facts that occured on this and other threads.
Wow! TopQuark starts to attack CEOs! What a change. Aren't you afraid to be accused of envy and class warfare?
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