A woman holds up Walmart-branded clothing in the aftermath of the deadly Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh.
At the same time as Walmart has
refused to join many European and Canadian companies in signing on to a binding safety plan for garment factories in Bangladesh, the company has
made a big show of its own, non-binding safety program. It recently released a long list of factories it won't work with because of safety and other problems:
But at least two of the factories on the list have continued to send massive shipments of sports bras and girls' dresses to Walmart stores in recent months, according to interviews and U.S. customs records.
In June 2011, Walmart said, it banned the Bangladeshi garment factory Mars Apparels from producing goods for the retail giant. But over the last year, Mars has repeatedly shipped tons of sports bras to Walmart, according to U.S. customs records and Mars owners. The most recent shipment was in late May, almost two years after Walmart claims it stopped doing business with the Bangladeshi firm.
A second Bangladeshi clothing maker, Simco Dresses, was blacklisted in January but continued shipping to Walmart Canada into March.
Explanations Excuses: Walmart has them. See, the clothes from Mars were Fruit of the Loom brand and there was confusion over who was responsible, Fruit of the Loom or Walmart. And Walmart continued allowing shipments from Simco as part of a slow transition so that workers wouldn't be hurt by a sudden loss of business. These may actually be reasonable explanations. But since there's no external watchdog on Walmart, since the company is in effect saying "trust us to do the right thing" when Walmart does not have what you'd call a stellar reputation on labor standards, we can't know. That's one of the most basic problems when companies claim they're going to police themselves. Which is the only form of policing Walmart is willing to accept.