by JAMES BRUDNEY and CATHERINE FISK
They have refused to sign a Bangladesh workers’ safety accord, showing irrational fears of financial and moral commitments.
If the horrific garment factory collapse last month in Bangladesh has any silver lining, it is the response from more than 30 of the world’s leading apparel companies — including Benetton, PVH, Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M, Inditex (Zara), Marks & Spencer and Tesco — to sign an agreement to protect the safety and lives of that nation’s workers, who make the companies’ products.
The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh is a historic advance over the voluntary private factory monitoring that has tragically failed to prevent the recent disasters in Bangladesh and in places around the world where clothes are stitched for the global market. The signatory firms have made a legally binding five-year commitment to establish a monitoring regime in which workers and their unions will participate, and to pay enough money into the system to fix the problems it uncovers.
Given the importance of this accord, it is disturbing that two major American firms have been unwilling to sign the agreement. Wal-Mart announced Wednesday that it would be launching its own (much weaker) initiative, while Gap — the world’s third-largest apparel company — has refused to join, citing concerns about liability related to the agreement’s provision for legal enforcement through arbitration. Gap has instead proposed that, in most cases, the sole remedy for noncompliance with an arbitration order should be expulsion from the program. But this would in effect amount to a firm being relieved of its obligations.
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