NORTH AMERICA Levi Strauss announces plant closings

LOS ANGELES TIMES
Levi Strauss & amp; Co., maker of a jeans brand so all-American that it became ingrained in the nation's identity, said Thursday it will close the last of its North American manufacturing plants, laying off almost 2,000 workers.
The announcement came just two weeks after the San Francisco-based company, which is struggling to cut costs and stay competitive, said it would lay off 7 percent of its U.S. work force.
Levi says it will shutter two plants in San Antonio by the year's end, displacing 800 workers there and marking the end of its U.S. manufacturing operations. It will discontinue its Canadian operations in March, erasing 1,190 jobs at three plants in Alberta and Ontario.
Its goal, the company said, is to focus its resources in other areas, including product development and marketing.
"We're in a highly competitive industry where few apparel brands own and operate manufacturing facilities in North America," Chief Executive Phil Marineau said in a statement. "In fact, we are one of the last companies to do so."
A symbol of struggle
Levi's announcement, while it involved relatively few jobs, in many ways symbolizes the struggle of an industry that has been clobbered by cheap overseas labor.
At the same time, the closures heap more pressure on the Bush administration as well as Congress to do something to help U.S. textile and apparel manufacturers, who claim they have lost 2.5 million jobs in recent years.
On Thursday, several manufacturers and labor leaders announced the formation of a group called the Free Trade for America Coalition to lobby for changes in trade policy. That followed the bankruptcy filing Wednesday by Cone Mills Corp. of Greensboro, N.C., the largest U.S. denim-fabric maker.
"Politicians have to answer to constituents who are wondering where the jobs are going," said Kevin Burke, president of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, a trade group.
Statistics
Last year, 96 percent of the apparel purchased in the United States was made in other countries, up from 93 percent in 2001, according to Burke's group.