Labor and student activists protested outside the Bipartisan Policy Center in downtown Washington, D.C., to highlight the hypocrisy of a corporate public relations spectacle led by the Gap and Walmart. The retail giants announced today yet another toothless voluntary private regulation scheme for the garment industry in Bangladesh. More than 1,800 workers have died in preventable factory fires and collapses since 2005. In response, workers and their allies recently negotiated an innovative and enforceable agreement to improve safety and rights for these workers. Since May 15, 80 companies have signed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. 

As the accord shows a way forward, the corporate-driven worker safety program announced today points the way backward to the same failed workplace monitoring schemes the AFL-CIO recently exposed. Gap and Walmart have come together with another 15 corporations to offer a watered-down and unenforceable version of the accord for those companies that would prefer not to make a serious commitment to workers’ rights. The Walmart/Gap plan was designed in a rush over the last five weeks in a closed process with no worker or union consultation and will be controlled by the very industry it claims to be monitoring.

The AFL-CIO and Change to Win have released a joint statement highlighting the plan's lack of enforcement mechanisms and failure to include workers in its development or high-level decision making as it goes forward.

The well-funded D.C. think tank Bipartisan Policy Center provided cover for Walmart and the Gap for their PR scheme. As reported in The Nation, the center has clear ties to Walmart and its neutrality must be questioned.  

While Walmart, Gap and other companies that join in this scheme may have avoided accountability in their supply chains, Bangladeshi workers will continue to face dangerous conditions and bear the consequences as they produce clothes and high profit margins for these brands.  

Don't forget to check out the video in the post, The Fatal Cost of Fashion, by AFT.