Walmart lobbied to avoid increased safety in Bangladesh

http://www.politico.com/politicoinfluence/0114/politicoinfluence12642.html

By BYRON TAU | 01/07/14
With Andrea Drusch

Retail giant Wal-Mart hired Porter Gordon Silver Communications to work on successfully stripping a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act in December, according to public disclosures released Tuesday. Several members of Congress had championed a worker-safety provision in the annual defense spending bill that would have given procurement priority to companies that signed onto a legally binding Bangladesh workers' safety agreement called the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety. Retailers like Wal-Mart and Gap have declined to sign on, and Wal-Mart unveiled its own nonbinding safety plan in May of last year for workers at its Bangladeshi factories. In practice, the provision would have cost Wal-Mart and other retailers not part of the accord a good deal of money — as their products would have suffered at retail stores on military bases as a result of procurement priority given to Accord members. The provision was included in the House version of the NDAA, but was absent from the final bill signed by President Barack Obama in late December.[The provision was removed by the Senate.] Bob Cochran, former chief of staff to Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, is listed on the account. The Huffington Post has a longer piece on the issue here: http://huff.to/1faW1v0


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/04/rana-plaza-bangladesh-senate_n_4538747.html

Dave Jamieson
01/04/2014

How A Plan To Help Curb Garment Factory Disasters In Bangladesh Died In The U.S. Senate

Concerned it may undermine their own response to recent factory disasters and cost them business, U.S. clothing makers pressured the Senate to spike a provision in this year's military spending bill that would have promoted a plan to improve labor standards in Bangladesh.

The measure, tucked into versions of the National Defense Authorization Act, would have required so-called exchange stores on military bases to give preferential treatment to suppliers that sign the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, a legally binding agreement between clothing brands, labor groups and non-governmental organizations in the wake of the Rana Plaza clothing factory collapse, which claimed 1,129 lives last year. The amendment was ultimately left out of the defense spending bill that recently landed on President Barack Obama's desk.

For the provision's backers, the events on Capitol Hill made for a rare and disappointing turn of events. The measure survived a vote in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives in June, only to die later in the Democrat-controlled Senate, where such a labor-backed amendment would normally stand better odds. The measure was championed by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in the Senate and Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) in the House.

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While alliance members have stressed that they share the same safety goals as the accord, labor groups and safety watchdogs have criticized the alliance as a form of corporate self-monitoring with little worker involvement.

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