Levi Strauss & Co. has pledged to help its employers, companions and their households affected by the choice within the coming months.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Pictures
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Pictures
Justin Sullivan/Getty Pictures
Levi Strauss & Co. introduced at present that it’s pausing industrial operations in Russia, in addition to donating hundreds of {dollars} in humanitarian assist to Ukrainian refugees. It is one of many many corporations, cultural occasions and athletic competitions distancing themselves from Russia over its aggression in Ukraine.
“Given the big disruption occurring within the area, which makes regular enterprise untenable, LS&Co. is briefly suspending industrial operations in Russia, together with any new investments,” the corporate stated in a information launch.
It pledged to help its employers, companions and their households affected by the choice within the coming months. About 4% of the corporate’s whole internet revenues got here from Japanese Europe in 2021, with about half of that associated to Russia, the corporate stated.
“However any enterprise concerns are clearly secondary to the human struggling skilled by so many,” it added.
Levi’s and the Levi Strauss Basis are donating greater than $300,000 to nonprofit organizations serving to Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion, together with the Worldwide Rescue Committee and CARE.
Levi’s says it is providing staff a 2-to-1 match — as much as $200,000 — for donations to a lot of unnamed “organizations dedicated to making sure that probably the most susceptible communities get the help they want, together with a number of which are making certain discrimination does not happen at border crossings.”
In the meantime, the corporate is working with its licensee companions to donate jackets, backpacks and different heat clothes to Ukrainian refugees.
Levi’s choice to drag again from Russia evokes reminiscences of the Chilly Battle period, when denims had been synonymous with capitalism and banned in Soviet-occupied East Germany.
The corporate particulars this historical past on its web site, noting that faculties and dance halls forbade blue denims. Many younger folks turned to kinfolk overseas or the black market to attempt to get their arms on them.
“Worldwide trend couldn’t be stopped on the Iron Curtain,” it writes. “Regardless of authorities efforts, Western developments, particularly Levi’s® blue denims, had been probably the most in vogue within the East.”
Because the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, tons of of younger folks made their approach towards freedom wearing blue denims, the corporate stated. It added that Levi Strauss Germany established a department workplace in reunified Berlin in 1990 earlier than increasing to beforehand restricted markets.