Panic is setting in among some of those retailers who troll the far reaches of the planet looking for cheap labor to exploit. And it’s a panic that is about loss of profit and control.

A lot of this is just pure bull:

Retailers are becoming more stringent about monitoring safety at the factories they use in Bangladesh, pre-empting a safety pact that won’t come into full effect until the fall.

…Retailers are hiring specialists and rushing to conduct their own building-safety checks, even before the same buildings are checked by the pact’s chief inspector.

Meaning, that the “safety pact” is a facade, no pun intended. As I wrote in the wake of the Rana massacre, there will never be safety until a strong union exists in every plant. Buildings will still be unsafe but even if buildings aren’t collapsing and killing hundreds of workers, it will still be a wretched place to work: low wage, long hours, abusive supervisors, bad air.