All About Dollar General’s $21 Million, 6-Year Safety Failures
Dollar General continues to flout safety standards and expose workers to on-the-job risks, according to the U.S. Department of Labor‘s latest findings.
“In one workplace after another, our investigations continue to find the same hazards at Dollar General stores,” OSHA area director Joel Batiz in Birmingham, Alabama, said in a statement dated June 2. “The Dollar General Corporation needs to make a change to address the recurring violations before there is a tragedy.”
More from Sourcing Journal
Amazon: 'No Evidence' Illinois Warehouse Death Was Work-Related
Amazon, Hit With Driver Lawsuit, Braces for 1,000-Worker Walkout
An October 2022 inspection with the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found spare shelving, rolling containers and merchandise blocking exit routes and creating fire and entrapment hazards at an Alabama Dollar General store in the town of Addison. Walkways were blocked by merchandise and unsafely stacked items, OSHA noted, which exposed workers to trip and struck-by hazards. The next month the agency found similar violations only about 35 miles away at a Haleyville store.
In an Astor, Fla., store in December 2022 OSHA found merchandise and other items blocking access to fire extinguishers and driving employees to store materials improperly in the working space around an electric panel—violations frequently found at Dollar General stores.
Following these three inspections, OSHA issued citations to the Tennessee-based company for a total of eight repeat violations with proposed penalties of $1,098,292. Since 2017, OSHA has cited Dollar General Corp. and Dolgencorp, the operators of one of America’s largest discount retailers, in more than 240 inspections and proposed penalties of more than $21 million.
Dollar General has already taken to the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission to dispute the results of the Alabama and Florida inspections.
Inspectors also assessed the discount chain nearly $9 million in proposed penalties after 28 investigations in Alabama, Florida and Georgia between February 2022 and April 2023.
In Lamesa, Texas, a federal workplace safety inspection found exit routes and walkways were blocked by unsafely stacked merchandise, exposing employees to fire hazards and struck-by injuries—common cause of violations for Dollar General. OSHA cited the company for four repeat violations and proposed $294,646 in penalties after this December 2022 inspection.
“Dollar General’s pattern of blocking emergency exits and pathways with boxes of merchandise, rolling carts and other materials jeopardizes the safety of everyone in their stores,” OSHA area director Elizabeth Linda Routh in Lubbock, Texas, said. “Poor housekeeping can lead employees to suffer needless injuries and make it hard to exit the store quickly in a crisis. These conditions must be corrected immediately.”
Last year, OSHA added Dollar General to its severe violator enforcement program, which “concentrates resources on inspecting employers cited for willful, repeated or failure-to-abate violations and for showing indifference to their legal obligations to provide a safe and healthy workplace,” according to the DOL.
A Dollar General spokesperson said the company is “committed” to workplace safety.
“As a growing retailer serving thousands of communities across the country, Dollar General is committed to providing a safe work environment for its associates and shopping experience for its customers,” a spokesperson for Dollar General told Sourcing Journal. “We regularly review and refine our safety programs, and reinforce them through training, ongoing communication, recognition and accountability. When we learn of situations where we have failed to live up to this commitment, we work to timely address the issue and ensure that the company’s expectations regarding safety are clearly communicated, understood and implemented.”
Dollar General isn’t the only low-cost chain accused of playing fast and loose with safety.
In Pewaukee, Wisc., OSHA responded to a Dollar Tree employee’s concerns about unsafe work conditions and found merchandise blocking aisles and exit routes, creating trip and fall hazards and preventing workers from leaving the location safely in the event of an emergency. The agency issued Dollar Tree, whose retail sibling Family Dollar has faced its own safety failures, a citation for one repeat violation and proposed $98,219 in penalties after inspecting the Pewaukee store, which employs eight.
“OSHA inspectors repeatedly find Dollar Tree employees exposed to the risks of injury from stacked merchandise, and blocked aisles and exits,” said OSHA director Christine Zortman in Milwaukee. “They need to develop and follow a company-wide safety and health program for its stores to eliminate these well-known hazards and protect the safety of their employees.”
