The OSHA citations Dollar Tree Stores just received for exposing employees at its stores in Alabama and Connecticut to workplace hazards should feel familiar to the national retailer.

"Disregard for safety"

The company “has an extensive history of similar violations and continues to show a disregard for safety measures designed to keep employees safe on the job,” said OSHA Mobile Area Director Jose Gonzalez. “Store employees should not be subjected to the same hazards previously identified and cited at multiple Dollar Tree locations nationwide.”

The unsafe stacking of merchandise and blocked exits violations, in particular, are recurring themes with the Chesapeake, Virginia-based company. Since 2015, OSHA has cited Dollar Tree Inc. for those and similar violations at locations in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Wisconsin, Idaho, Texas, New York, and Rhode Island.

Two recent cases

The two recent enforcement cases involve some of the same violations. At a store in Andalusia, Alabama, OSHA cited the company for:

  • exposing employees to slip, trip, and fall hazards by failing to keep passageways and walking surfaces in a clean, orderly, and sanitary condition
  • allowing cases of merchandise to be stacked unsafely
  • failing to address struck-by hazards, and
  • permitting emergency exits to be blocked.

The company faces $312,576 in penalties for those violations.

More exit and storage hazards were identified at a store in Bloomfield, Connecticut. When OSHA inspectors responded to a complaint, Responding to a complaint, OSHA inspectors found:

  • the store's emergency exits blocked by rolling conveyor equipment and stored merchandise
  • boxes of products stacked unsafely, creating the potential for falling loads, and
  • tripping and fire hazards.

OSHA cited Dollar Tree Stores Inc. for two repeat violations for these conditions at the Bloomfield store, with $208,384 in proposed penalties

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Loren Sweatt said in a statement that OSHA “is working to ensure that Dollar Tree Stores are held accountable for their obligations under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”

Click here to read FairWarning's in-depth report on Dollar Trees corporate-wide safety violations - many of which were cited after the company reached a settlement agreement with OSHA.

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