The company, which also owns the UK's third biggest supermarket, Asda, said the deal signed by its rivals was "unnecessary to achieve fire and safety goals" and questioned the "governance and dispute-resolution mechanisms".
Instead, Walmart has agreed its own deal to inspect all 279 factories it uses in Bangladesh within six months, and has promised to publish the findings immediately.
Bosses claim this goes beyond the UNI Global Union and IndustriALL deal, pointing out the agreement requires 65% of inspections instead of 100% inspections taking place and argue its own deal means results are published straight away rather than within 45 days.
However, the Walmart deal is not legally binding, does not require the company to offer financial support for fire and safety regulations or blacklist factories unwilling to comply.
Sam Maher from Labour Behind the Label, said: "Walmart's so-called new programme is simply more of the same ineffective auditing that failed to prevent the Rana Plaza disaster, or the deaths of 112 workers at Tazreen, who were producing Walmart goods.
"The changes demanded by the IndustriALL accord include ensuring that factories are provided with the incentives and investment needed to actually make factories safe and are essential for any real change to occur. What Walmart are demanding is business as usual: a business that has cost lives of over 1,300 workers in the last six months alone."
LIST OF COMPANIES SIGNED UP:
H&M, Inditex (Zara), C&A, PVH (Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein), Tchibo, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Primark, El Corte Inglés, Mango, Carrefour, KiK, Helly Hansen, G-Star, Aldi South, Aldi North, New Look, Mothercare, Next, Loblaws, Sainsbury's, Benetton, N Brown Group, Stockmann, Arcadia group (Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Bhs, Wallis, Evans), John Lewis
Some notes to make:
I am pleased there has been some kind of step forward. It will only truly be a step forward when it has effected substantial and lasting change in production methods and working conditions on the ground.
I would ask for a boycott of Walmart except that their monopolising behaviour has meant there are few alternatives available at prices that won't further penalise the finances of poorer people.
Clearly thousands of people have to die in a widely publicised way for most businesses to even consider the health and safety of the conditions in which their products are made. Only then will they maybe consider changing the way they do business.
Companies like Walmart exist because Federal and State economic policies encourage and support their operating models. That support comes at the expense of SME businesses and local retailers. Remember that every time you hear a politician affect sympathy for 'the squeezed middle classes' and 'main street' - ask them when they will institute policies that encourage the growth of diverse, specialised and locally owned businesses rather than conglomerates, multinationals and chain stores.