Wal-Mart Among Retailers Involved in Deadly Factory Fire

I have long avoided shopping at Wal-Mart because I view the Walton family as the retail equivalents of Mitt Romney's vulture capitalists.  Wal-Mart employees get lousy pay while the Waltons amass billions.  Now, following a deadly factor fire in Bangladesh where 112 workers died in a scene reminiscent of the horrible Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City a century ago, it turns out that Wal-Mart had been warned of the unsafe factory conditions a year ago.  Decent wages and worker safety apparently meant nothing to Walmart and the unsafe conditions continued.   While Wal-Mart wasn't the only American retailer that was served by the factory, it does seem that it most personifies the indecency that excuses anything that adds to the company's bottom line and which adds to the Walton Family fortune.  And, of course, Wal-Mart opposes unions which might force it to change its greedy ways.  ABC News looks at the avoidable tragedy in Bangladesh.  Here are highlights:

The 100-plus workers who died in a fire late Saturday at a high-rise garment factory in Bangladesh were working overtime making clothes for major American retailers, including Wal-Mart, according to workers' rights groups.

Officials in Bangladesh said the flames at the Tazreen Fashions factory outside Dhaka spread rapidly on the ground floor, trapping those on the higher floors of the nine-story building. There were no exterior fire escapes, according to officials, and many died after jumping from upper floors to escape the flames.

As firemen continued to remove bodies Sunday, officials said at least 112 people had died but that the number of fatalities could go higher.

The Tazreen fire is the latest in a series of deadly blazes at garment factories in Bangladesh, where more than 700 workers, many making clothes for U.S. consumers, have died in factory fires in the past five years. As previously reported by ABC News, Bangladesh has some of the cheapest labor in the world and some of the most deplorable working conditions.

"The industry and parent brands in the U.S. have been warned again and again about the extreme danger to workers in Bangladesh and they have not taken action," said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, an American group working to improve conditions at factories abroad that make clothes for U.S. companies. Nova said the fire was the most deadly in the history of the Bangladesh apparel industry, and "one of the worst in any country."

They say they found labels for Faded Glory, a Wal-Mart private label, along with labels they said traced back to Sears and a clothing company owned by music impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs.

Nova also said that Wal-Mart "knew exactly what's going on at these facilities. They have staff on site in Bangladesh."  Wal-Mart actually was warned of dangerous conditions at the Tazreen factory last year, in a letter posted online by the factory owner.

This tragedy is an example of the regulation free type of capitalism favored by today's Republican Party -  the same crowd that wears it religiosity on its sleeve while rejecting the Gospel message through its actions.