Levi Strauss cuts another 2,000, shutters U.S. plants

San Francisco Business Times ^ | 9/25/03

[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.

[GraniteStateConservative]

They must train themselves to live on $5,000/year incomes. You know that.

[GraniteStateConservative]

How about a Tom Tancredo-Lou Dobbs ticket?

[ARCADIA]

The Constitution was/is/and always will be a flawed document.

The constitution is not a flawed document. But it is only a cornerstone for a system of government that includes a thousand years of tradition. The words themselves only have value becuase we have a language and a structure by which to interpret the meaning of the words. Likewise, when we declared out independence, we retained much of the existing English common law, along with numrous other customs. Slaves, minors, women, and others were granted the full protection of our constitution, as it was understood under the prevailing custom of the day. We have come a long way since then, and our body of laws has adapted accordingly. That the constitution is designed to grow to accomodate the change is a tribute to how powerful and well written the document is.

[sarcasm]

Sounds good - especially after Dobbs wrote this:

Stop trading U.S. jobs away

[jas3]

You forgot to address the questions on why it needed to be amended if it already allowed women the vote.

[ARCADIA]

It neither allowed, nor disallowed women to vote. It simply left the manor of election for the House and Senate up to the individual states (subject to congressional review), and left it up to congress to decide the means for the selection of presidential Electors.

[A. Pole]

Obviously it was amended because it did prohibit women from voting. To claim otherwise is folly.

Have your read the Constitution? Give me the quote with this former prohibition.

[jas3]

Yup...read it many many many times.

Explain why it was amended if women already had the right to vote in 1789?

[ARCADIA]

Explain why it was amended if women already had the right to vote in 1789?

I already answered this in 186; why don't you reply to Apole question in 187?

[A. Pole]

Explain why it was amended if women already had the right to vote in 1789?

Because the idea of women voting was an alien concept which did not appear often to the XVIII minds. Once it became popular the controversy started which was resolved by the amendement.

[jas3]

Are you saying that the main purpose of suffrage movement was to gain recognition of women's pre-existing Constitutional right to vote rather than to actually create a new right for them?

If so, that's a very novel view of history.

[A. Pole]

Are you saying that the main purpose of suffrage movement was to gain recognition of women's pre-existing Constitutional right to vote rather than to actually create a new right for them?

So what is your explanation?

[jas3]

The text of the Constitution did not *expressly* prohibit women from voting in 1789.

Neither did it expressly grant them the right to vote.

It would be equally as fruitless for me to ask you to quote where the Constitution granted women the right to vote prior to Article XIX.

Women were chattel in 1789. There was no controversy as to whether they would or would not be allowed to vote until many many years later.

[jas3]

My explanation is that women campaigned for and were granted a new right not intened by the framers. That new right was Article XIX.

If I understand you correctly, your interpretation seems to be that women campaigned for an old right they were granted in 1789 but for some reason prohibited from using for 144 years.

[A. Pole]

If I understand you correctly, your interpretation seems to be that women campaigned for an old right they were granted in 1789 but for some reason prohibited from using for 144 years.

No, what I said is that Constitution was not involved in women vote. It did not prohibit and did not protect it.

[wku man]

I wasn't aware they supported anti-gun groups, but when I learned they had pulled their support of the Boy Scouts, I knew my last pair of Dockers had been bought. Any group that supports a bunch of whiny, sissy queers over the BSA is a company that will get no more of my money!

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[HangFire]

Check this out wku:

http://www.prsa.org/_Awards/silver/html/6BW0107E13.html

[pointsal]

Hummm.......must not be enough queer guys in Levis.........

[jas3]

OK. I'll agree with that.

[wku man]

Thanks for the link, bro, but I think I'm gonna be sick. A once great American company actively working against one of the bedrocks of our freedom, the RKBA, all in the name of selling more friggin' pairs of jeans to a bunch of mushy headed, dumbass kids. We are indeed headed into troubled waters.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!