Newly found documents indicate that apparel had been produced for Wal-Mart at one of the operations in the factory building that collapsed last month, killing more than 1,100 workers. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/business/six-retailers-join-bangladesh-factory-pact.html?ref=world  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 had produced jeans last year at the factory, which had been in the collapsed Rana Plaza building. Wal-Mart was unwilling to sign on to the broad safety plan embraced by more than a dozen European companies this week for the 279 factories it uses in Bangladesh. 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. 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. A Executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum, an advocacy group in Washington, faulted Wal-Mart for again trying to distance itself from the building collapse just as it sought to do after the November fire. “It’s another example of Wal-Mart’s lack of ability to track the specifics of its supply chain,”

Some voiced skepticism that a Wal-Mart (safety) initiative would significantly improve worker safety. “It is a unilateral initiative that’s nonbinding and unenforceable, and it’s unclear how much transparency there will be, If all of this stuff happens, there’s substance, but there’s no basis to believe it will all happen.”