Most research on private governance examines the design and negotiation of particular initiatives or their operation and effectiveness once established, with relatively little work on why firms join in the first place. We contribute to this literature by exploring firms’ willingness to participate in two recent, high-profile private initiatives established in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster in the Bangladesh ready-made garment (RMG) sector: the Accord on Building and Fire Safety and the Alliance for Worker Safety in Bangladesh. We are able to positively attribute only a minority of US RMG imports from Bangladesh to Accord and Alliance signatories. Firms headquartered in the USA were much less likely to sign onto remediation plans, especially the Accord.