Fuerza Unida Renews Call for Solidarity Against Levi's

(Labor Notes, January 1998)

Company Announces 11 More Plant Closings

Responding to Levi Strauss & Co.'s announcement that it plans 6,4000 new layoffs, Fuerza Unida, a grassroots organization of women workers in San Antonio Texas, renewed calls for solitlarity with its seven-year campaign for corporate responsibility at Levi's.
On November 3, the company announced plans to close l l plants in New Mexico, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas, laying off 34 percent ot its total manufacturing workforce in the U.S. and Canada.
Levi's says it offered a severance package which was subsequently endorsed by the Union of Needletradest, Industrial and Textile Employees. UNITE says it negotiated the agreement. UNITE represents 800 of the workers being laid off.
Referring to the package, a Levi spokesman said, "Because of some of the lessons learned in San Antonio, you see what we have here today." The "lessons learned" have to do with the differences between the severance package offered to l,150 non-unionl San Antonio Workers in 1990, and this year's package.
In l990, Levi Strauss laid off the mostly Mexican-American women sewing Dockers pants at its San Antonio plant. Many of them got less than 24 hours' notice, far less than theeight months' notice other Levi Strauss workers are getting now. The company is also offering current workers three weeks' pay for each year of service, 18 months of continued health benefits, and an early retirement option. The San Antonio workers got one week's pay for each year of service, three months health care, and no early retirement option.

Correct The Error

The San Antonio workers are demanding that Levi Strauss offer them a comparable package.
Now that Levi's has admitted its mistakes, it is time to correct those errors," said Fuerza Unida Co-Coordinator Petra Mata. "Levi's should open new negotiations with Fuerza Unida on behalf of the laid-off San Antonio workers. We deserve to be part t of Levi's new severance package."
Workers created Fuerza Unida after the 1990 layoffs. The group built a workers' center for the women and their families in San Antonio. It also runs a sewing cooperative and food bank, and provides assistance, education, traininig and support for workers, whether or not they are currently employed.
The new closings come just three yeras after UNITE (then ACTWU) entered a labor-management partnership with Levi Strauss in 1994 to prevent plant closings. UNITE, however, says that while it agreed to the partnership as a job-saving measure, the current plant closings are a differnt issue.
"We don't think that it has anything to do with the partnership," said UNITE spokesperson Jo-Ann Mort. When the partnership started, she said, the union "knew that business decisons would have to be made." But the union is saying little beyond that. in statement issued when the layoffs were announced, Unite highlighted Levi Strauss' "commitment to a high road of management" and compared the company favorably to its competitors in its treatment of workers.
UNITE also says that the 6,400 new layoffs are due to a "reduction in capacity" for Levi's domestically, rather than an attempt to move jobs to other countries with cheaper labor.
After laying off the Dockers worker earns in one day what the San Antonio workers earned in half an hour.
Fuerza Unida is asking for solidarity with their boycott againest Levi's products. The organization is olso requesting that community groups reject money from the Levi Strauss Foundation.

You can support the Levi's workers by writing to:
Bob Haas, CEO, Levi strauss & Co., 1155 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111. Fax: 415/501-8938.
For mre information, write:
Fuerza Unida, 710 New Laredo Hwy., san Antonio, TX 78211. Phone: 210/927-2294

Home page