THE official death toll from the collapse of the Rana Plaza clothing factory complex (pictured) on the outskirts of Dhaka is now over 1100, making it probably the deadliest industrial accident ever after Bhopal. Although the factory owners and the government officials who failed properly to regulate them are the main culprits, anger both in Bangladesh and internationally has stung into action many of the big multinational firms who have clothes made there. Ambitious plans have been announced to ensure that such a disaster will never happen again or, if it does, that they will not be credibly held to blame.



The most ambitious is a beefed up version of an industry scheme to monitor factories and help finance making them safe, proposed by the Workers Rights Consortium, an NGO. Until the factory collapse at Rana Plaza, this had languishd for a year with only two corporat signatories, too few to trigger the scheme. On May 15th the number of companies to sign up to the scheme rose to 31, including Carrefour, Marks & Spencer, Benetton and Inditex, the owner of Zara.



Yet although American clothing brands and retailers have been heavily involved in discussions about this plan, only two have signed up so far, PVH, owner of the Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Van Heusen brands, and Abercrombie & Fitch. On May 14th having led the American end of the negotiations, WalMart and the Gap both publicly came out against the plan.



Gap said it would have signed but for six lines of text in the plan. It exposes GAP to far too much litigation risk in America, which is far more llitigator friendly than Europe, the firm says. It called on its European counterparts to draft a less legally onerous version—so far to no effect. As Gap has earned a reputation in recent years as a responsible corporate citizen, this stance should not be dismissed lightly.



WalMart also decided not to sign, instead announcing yet more upgrades to an earlier inhouse plan it launched in the aftermath of earlier deadly factory fires in Bangladesh. As well as its existing "zero tolerance" policy towards factories that fail safety examinations, introduced in January, WalMart now says it will conduct inspections every two months in all the factories it uses in Bangladesh and publish the names of any that fail to pass muster.



This approach has been criticised by the Workers Rights Consortium because, unlike its plan, it contains no binding commitment to help fund improvements to make factories safe. Yet it is debatable whether wealthy factory owners really lack funds to make factories safe, as opposed to the lack of incentive due to the Bangladesh government's failure to enforce its own building code. WalMart points out that the government has now started to close unsafe fatories, 19 so far (presumably because of the constant protests by locals since the collapse of Rana Plaza). It says its new approach will detect unsafe factories significantly faster than the Workers Rights Consortium's plan.



Perhaps it would be better if everyone agreed on a common approach. But if there must be competition, it is surely better that it is over how to make factories safer than the alternative.