(914) 220-1086A recent news release by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a division of the US Department of Labor, describes a raft of workplace safety violations by Dollar General Corp. and Dolgencorp LLC, which operate at least 18,000 Dollar General locations throughout the country. According to OSHA, its inspectors identified safety violations at four stores in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. The agency has proposed more than $1.6 million in penalties against the company in relation to these inspections, “a portion of the more than $9.6 million in total initial penalties the company has received since 2017.”
The inspections took place in April 2022 in four locations: Mobile and Grove Hill, Alabama; Tampa, Florida; and Dewy Rose, Georgia. OSHA inspectors issued four willful violations and 10 repeat violations for findings that the stores did not maintain receiving areas in a clean, orderly manner, and that they failed to stack materials in a safe manner. As the news release notes, these alleged violations “exposed workers to hazards associated with slips, trips and being struck-by objects.”
Those were not the only unsafe conditions described by OSHA inspectors. The worksites were also cited for “exposing workers to fire and entrapment hazards by failing to keep exit routes and electrical panels clear and unobstructed.” Inspectors further cited Dollar General for findings that fire extinguishers were not properly mounted and labeled, and for “having a locked exit door that required a key to open.”
The April 2022 citations represent only the most recent findings of unsafe working conditions at Dollar General stores. A total of 182 OSHA inspections at Dollar General locations since 2017 have “often” found workplace hazards. These include slip and trip hazards identified in a Mobile, Alabama location in 2021 and fire and entrapment hazards identified in three Georgia locations in August 2022.
In a statement about the most recent citations, an OSHA official said: Once again, our inspectors have found Dollar General stores ignoring federal safety standards and exposing their employees to hazardous working conditions in violation of the law… We will use our full enforcement powers to hold Dollar General accountable for its ongoing pattern of behavior until they show that they take worker safety seriously.”
More information on OSHA’s findings of unsafe working conditions at Dollar General stores is available via the agency’s news release.
