The Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity has provided The New York Times with photos of several documents not disputed by Wal-Mart that were recovered in the building’s rubble, showing that a Wal-Mart contractor from Canada had produced jeans last year at the Ether Tex factory, which had been situated on the fifth floor of the collapsed Rana Plaza building.
While both the contractor and Wal-Mart denied any knowledge of the production orders there, Wal-Mart on Tuesday announced that it would put in place new safety measures at the factories it was using in Bangladesh.
Saying it was unwilling to sign on to the broad safety plan embraced by more than a dozen European companies this week, Wal-Mart said its factory monitors would “conduct in-depth safety inspections at 100 percent” of the 279 factories it uses in Bangladesh and publicize the results on its Web site.
Wal-Mart promised to stop production immediately at factories if urgent safety problems were uncovered and to notify factory owners and government authorities of improvements. But the company, the world’s largest retailer, stopped short of committing to help underwrite the improvements — one of the crucial aspects of the Bangladesh safety agreement adopted by European companies.
On Tuesday, Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer, Benetton, Marks Spencer and El Corte Inglés, the Spanish department store chain, joined major retailers like HM and Inditex, the parent of Zara, in signing on to the safety agreement. The plan requires companies to have rigorous independent inspections and to help pay for fire safety upgrades, like adding fire escapes, which many factories still lack.
But Wal-Mart and numerous other American retailers and apparel companies have sought to maintain a distance from the April 24 building collapse, and have balked at the worker safety agreement urged by consumer and labor groups.
Wal-Mart maintained on Tuesday that it had no involvement at the Rana Plaza building, playing down the newly discovered documents.
One document, dated May 12, 2012, that was found in the rubble detailed a purchase order by a Canadian company, Fame Jeans, for “dark blue wash,” “skinny fit” jeans to be delivered to Wal-Mart in the fall of 2012. Another document, dated April 27, 2012, discussed pricing for five styles of jeans, with the prices ranging from $3.41 to $4.50 a pair.
But Wal-Mart emphasized that the documents dated back a year. “Our investigation of the Rana Plaza building site after the collapse revealed no evidence of authorized or unauthorized production at the time of the tragedy,” said Kevin Gardner, a Wal-Mart spokesman. He declined to say on Tuesday whether the Ether Tex factory, as well as the Fame Jeans order there, were authorized.
After The Times questioned Wal-Mart about the documents on Tuesday, Alen Brandman, chief executive of Fame Jeans, said in an interview, “It’s very clear that Wal-Mart did not authorize me in any capacity to work within this factory.” He blamed a “rogue employee” for the order, who had decided to use the factory without Mr. Brandman’s knowledge.
He said after that order “no other product came out” of that factory “for us or for Wal-Mart.”
After a fire last November at another Bangladesh garment factory that killed 112 workers, numerous documents showed that six suppliers had clothes made there for Wal-Mart in previous months. Wal-Mart said it had deauthorized the factory because of violations and had terminated its relationship with the suppliers that continued using the factory after it was deauthorized.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/business/six-retailers-join-bangladesh-factory-pact.html?partner=rss&emc=rss