OSHA Settles with Dollar General Requiring Corporate-wide Safety Investments

On July 11, OSHA  announced it entered into a corporate-wide settlement with Dollar General and its retail subsidiaries to make significant workplace safety improvements in stores nationwide.

The company had been hit with $15 million in fines,  in 2023, as EHS reported.

“This agreement commits Dollar General to making worker safety a priority by implementing significant and systematic changes in its operations to improve accountability and compliance, and it gives Dollar General employees essential input on ensuring their own health and safety,” said Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Douglas L. Parker, in a statement. “These changes help give peace of mind to thousands of workers, knowing that they are not risking their safety in their workplaces and that they will come home healthy at the end of each day.”

Dollar General agreed to pay $12 million in penalties and implement corporate-wide changes that make the safety of its employees a priority. These improvements include the following:

• 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.

The agreement also requires Dollar General to ensure prompt abatement of any future violations related to blocked exits, access to fire extinguishers and electrical panels, and improper material storage at its stores during the agreement term. The company must correct such hazards — generally within 48 hours — and submit proof they corrected hazards. Failure to do so subjects Dollar General to monetary assessments of $100,000 per day of violation, up to $500,000, as well as OSHA inspection and enforcement actions.

Dollar General retained a third-party consultant to identify hazards and analyze enterprise-wide contributing factors; retained a third-party auditor to perform unannounced compliance audits annually at all covered stores to assess egress, access to fire extinguishers and electrical panels, electrical hazards and storage conditions; created a new Safety Operations Center to detect store hazards and support safety performance; and maintained an anonymous hotline for employees and the public to report safety concerns.

These actions are also requirements of the settlement agreement. Dollar General will monitor outcomes from these actions and provide quarterly reports to OSHA as part of the agreement.

This settlement agreement resolves existing contested as well as open federal OSHA inspections involving alleged violations such as blocked emergency exits, blocked electrical panels, blocked fire extinguishers and unsafe storage.