PETA Shareholder Proposal to Call Levi’s Bluff on Animal Welfare
Group May Probe Retailer’s Slaughter Methods Used to Obtain Leather
For Immediate Release:
November 2, 2021
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
On the heels of Levi Strauss & Co.’s updated animal welfare policy, PETA submitted a shareholder resolution today proposing that Levi’s commission a report on the slaughter methods used to procure leather so that it can determine if the practices follow the company’s loose animal welfare guidelines, which claim that animals in its supply chain have “[f]reedom from [f]ear and [d]istress.” PETA purchased stock in 2019 in order to pressure Levi’s from the inside to switch to vegan leather.
PETA points out that cows killed for leather are castrated and branded, their tails are cut off, and their horns are burned out of their heads. After a miserable life of extreme crowding and deprivation, they’re shipped to slaughterhouses, where their throats are slit and many are even skinned and dismembered while they’re still conscious.
“If animal welfare and transparency truly matter to Levi’s, it should jump at the chance to make these practices known,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is pushing Levi’s to honor its commitments, and we’re issuing a reminder that whenever leather is involved, there’s cruelty in every stitch.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
