Dollar General Agrees to Implement Workers’ Safety Demands, Settle with OSHA for $12 Million

Settlement Follows Years-Long Worker Justice Campaign for Store Safety 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Jamie Broussard, Step Up Louisiana, (225) 614-8454, jbroussard@redcypressconsulting.com

JULY 15, 2024, NEW ORLEANS—After years of worker activism demanding safer stores, Dollar General has settled with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for $12 million and agreed to implement new store safety measures, several which align with a list of demands from workers and organizers with Step Up Louisiana and other labor groups who have led a nationwide worker justice campaign for store safety. The campaign has escalated over the past two years, garnering public scrutiny and ongoing national media coverage.

“This settlement is a step in the right direction, and twelve million dollars is a lot of money—but I know Dollar General has billions,” said Kenya Coleman, a Dollar General employee organizing with Step Up Louisiana. “We need to ensure that this is enough to guarantee a significant change for workers who are the face of the company and who put their lives on the line every day just by showing up to work.”

Dollar General’s agreement to implement corporate-wide changes to improve store safety include:

• Establishing and maintaining an expanded safety structure and a robust safety and health management system, including hiring additional safety managers.

• Significantly reducing inventory and increasing stocking efficiency to prevent blocked exits and unsafe material storage. 

• Providing safety and health training to both leadership and non-managerial employees. 

• Developing a safety and health committee and encouraging employee participation.

Coleman commented that these new regulations incorporate several safety demands that workers previously delivered to Dollar General management, with no meaningful action taken. “Dollar General is agreeing to implement four of the safety demands we’ve been advocating for for years: establishing new safety policies, creating infrastructure for store safety, hiring safety managers and incorporating worker input on new safety practices,” Coleman said. “This is a huge victory for dollar store workers across the country, and we want CEO Todd Vasos to know that we’re serious and will keep fighting until all workers can go to work without having to worry about whether they will make it home safe at the end of the day.”

Dollar General’s repeated track record of store safety violations has included blocked exits, perpetually understaffed stores, in-store violence including armed robbery and murder, backbreaking pace of work, poverty wages, rat infestations, and repeated OSHA violations. In 2023, the multi-billion dollar retail chain made headlines for being listed on OSHA’s ‘Severe Violators’ list, a label for employers with “willful, repeated” safety violations that haven’t taken effective measures toward improvement. 

In 2023, Dollar General shareholders approved a resolution to create an independent audit into worker safety and well-being at its annual shareholder meeting, an unprecedented move in response to growing pressure on Dollar General and other national chains to improve store safety. When Dollar General shared results of the audit this spring, Step Up Louisiana slammed the results, pointing out that Dollar General hired a notorious union-busting law firm, Jackson Lewis, to lead the audit, and citing the audit’s failure to measurably improve store safety.

This May, over 200 Dollar General workers and customers protested the corporation’s annual shareholder meeting to demand safer stores. This action followed a string of protests at Dollar General stores across nine states to protest dollar stores’ persistent safety violations and advocate for workers’ safety demands. 

Dollar Tree also settled with OSHA for $1.35 million and other safety policy changes in 2023 following protests from Step Up Louisiana and Dollar Tree and Family Dollar Workers. 

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About Step Up Louisiana 

Step Up Louisiana is a community-based organization committed to building power to win education and economic justice for all. Step Up works with Louisianans of all races and ages to “step up” by campaigning, organizing from a racial justice perspective, and holding public officials accountable. The organization partners with parents, workers, students, and community members to disrupt systemic oppression in our schools and workplaces through voter education, advocacy, and action.