Workers at Levi Strauss & Co.'s last El Paso manufacturing plant were scheduled today to pick up their last paychecks from the company.

The Lower Valley plant at 1000 Kastrin, which employed 780 people, stopped production about two weeks ago. Today is the last day for all but a handful of the plant's employees to be on the company's payroll, said Luis Casanova, a Levi spokesman in Dallas.

Employees' severance pay, which is two weeks pay for each year of employment, now kicks in, he said. Each employee has also received $2,420 in "transition allowance" payments, he said.

This marks the end of the San Francisco-based garment company's more than 30-year presence in El Paso. For years, Levi Strauss & Co. was one of El Paso's largest employers. Before 1997, it operated seven plants and employed about 3,500 people, Casanova said.

The Kastrin sewing plant produced 6 million Levi's jeans a year and had an annual payroll of $14.8 million, Casanova said. The average hourly wage was $9.87, he said.

The El Paso plant closing is part of Levi's exit from operating manufacturing plants in the United States. It now has only two plants in San Antonio with just under 900 employees, Casanova said. Production is now done by contractors in other countries and at 19 Levi-owned plants in other countries, he said.

Estela Ortiz, who worked for Levi for 24 years, including the past seven at the Kastrin plant, where she was human resources manager, said the closure is "sad, of course. A lot of people lost their employment.

"But in a sense, maybe it's also an opportunity (for me) to work for another company," Ortiz said. She said she's been too busy dealing with details of the closure to focus on her plans. But Ortiz hopes to find another personnel management job in El Paso. She also will probably attend school to broaden her career options, she said.

William Gonzalez is employee advocate for the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, a Chicago nonprofit organization hired by Levi to coordinate various services and government benefits available to laid-off workers. Gonzalez said 75 percent of 645 plant employees responding to a survey expressed interest in going to school or job retraining programs.

"About 80 percent of the work force are limited-English speakers who need some remedial English courses," Gonzalez said.

Many former garment workers in El Paso have struggled to get retrained or find other jobs because of their lack of English-speaking skills and lack of high-school education. Their age has also been a problem.

Around 60 percent to 65 percent of the Kastrin plant work force were women and almost half the work force, were 40 years old or older, Gonzalez said. The average length of employment ranged from 11 to 20 years, he said.

About 30 percent of the Kastrin plant employees surveyed also expressed interest in starting their own business, Gonzalez said.

Thirty-seven former Levi workers who lost jobs from previous Levi plant closings in El Paso started businesses, said Bob Aguirre, training coordinator for the El Paso Community College Business Development Center. Aguirre did not know how many of those continue to operate a business today. A handful of Kastrin plant employees are now "showing big-time interest in starting a business," he said.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at vkolenc@elpasotimes.com