The Dollar Tree discount store chain has agreed to adhere to a strict set of rules and pay more $825,000 in fines after a federal agency found multiple safety violations at its stores, including blocked emergency exits, obstructed access to exit routes and electrical equipment, and improper material storage.
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration launched an investigation into the Chesapeake, Virginia-based discount chain after 13 separate inspections found numerous complaints about safety in many of its stores’ storerooms, according to Dr. David Michaels, assistant Labor Secretary for OSHA.
Multi-Tiered Safety Reforms
Under the terms of the agreement, Dollar Tree will improve its safety procedures at all of its 2,400 stores nationwide, including improvements in management commitment, employee participation, hazard identification and control, education and training for its workers and mid-level managers, and program evaluation.
The chain also has agreed to publish and distribute a corporate newsletter covering safety and health issues.
Other terms of the agreement include:
- Dollar Tree will allow a third-party agency to audit 50 stores over the next two years. Store managers will be required to correct any safety issues found within 21 days of being notified of them.
- The chain also agreed to internally inspect a cross-section of its stores for the next three years.
- Employees will be encouraged to call an anonymous tip line to report safety and health issues.
- OSHA will continue to monitor implementation of the agreement.
OSHA inspectors found numerous safety violations in Dollar Tree stores throughout the US, including a store in Houston, Texas, in which boxes of products were stacked at dangerous levels and exit routes were blocked. OSHA inspectors had previously cited the store for the same issues, but they had not been corrected when they returned to the store months later.
200 Citations in Six Years
Nationwide, Dollar Tree has been cited for safety and health violations more than 200 times since 2009.
Under the terms of the agreement, Dollar Tree must correct those violations, as well as comply with other engineering and administrative control measures, including:
- Implementing a program in which store managers can request storage containers that allow stores to store items safely
- Requiring routes to emergency exits and electrical equipment be at least 28 inches wide
- Reviewing delivery, unloading and personnel systems to ensure placement of received merchandise and materials in designated storage or sales areas does not obstruct access to exits and electrical equipment, or create storage hazards
Dollar Tree employs about 17,600 full-time workers and 69,800 part-time employees. The settlement will create safer work environments for both store personnel and customers, said Michaels.
“This settlement agreement demonstrates Dollar Tree’s commitment to improve training, safety procedures, and working conditions at its stores nationwide,” Michaels said in a news release announcing the settlement. “OSHA looks forward to working cooperatively with the company to ensure that these changes better protect the safety and health of Dollar Tree’s employees.”