Critics say the United States plan will do far less to improve factory safety in Bangladesh than the European-dominated plan.
An April 2014 report by the NYU Stern Center for Human Rights found that industry efforts to improve factory conditions had affected fewer than 2,000 of the estimated 5,000-6,000 workplaces.
A copy of his e-mail was provided by an official who believes Walmart has not done enough to improve factory safety.
More than 100 retailers and brands, including Marks & Spencer, Primark, Next and Arcadia, the owner of Topshop, have signed up to this legally binding deal to help improve factory safety.
The documents showing that the Army and Air Force Exchange Service imported goods from Myanmar were obtained from the National Labor Committee, a New York-based labor rights group that seeks to improve factory conditions overseas.
Having tried, without success, to improve factory conditions through surveys, petitions and demonstrations, he finally turned to suicide in one last desperate bid to open the eyes of the world to the suffering of a generation of workers.
Meanwhile, more than 70 other companies have signed a different accord, which does endorse the right of workers to organize as part of an overall strategy to improve factory safety in Bangladesh.
Unlike many of its competitors, Forever 21 has not joined either the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety or the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, two retail groups that have vowed to improve factory conditions in the country.
The Labor Department has favored them, arguing that Bangladesh and its garment industry have been slow to improve factory safety and end violations of workers' rights to form labor unions.
