Dollar Tree now considered "Severe Violator" by Washington Labor and Industries, Vancouver store fined $503k

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Brian Lutz
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Dollar Tree now considered "Severe Violator" by Washington Labor and Industries, Vancouver store fined $503k

Post by Brian Lutz »

https://www.lni.wa.gov/News/2019/pr190516a.asp

A Dollar Tree store in Vancouver WA was fined $503,400 by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries over "repeated willful" safety violations for items such as unsafe stacking in storage rooms, improper ladder use and obstructed emergency exits. The press release states that prior to this Dollar Tree stores in Washington have been fined $593,000 for safety violations since 2013, including a $166,000 fine against a store in Bonney Lake and a $140,000 fine against a store in Kelso.

Washington L&I has placed Dollar Tree into their Severe Violator enforcement program, which means that all Dollar Tree stores in the state are now subject to unannounced safety inspections at any time.
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Re: Dollar Tree now considered "Severe Violator" by Washington Labor and Industries, Vancouver store fined $503k

Post by storewanderer »

Dollar Tree's freight system is a real struggle for the volume of merchandise movement they do. They get everything in from the warehouse a box at a time, no pallets. Receiving involves quite a few "hands" to unload the hundreds of boxes off the truck and get the stuff into the right place in the stock room which is often too full so the boxes just go to the sales floor.

Because they usually don't get more than one truck a week (some stores less) yet sell considerably high volumes of certain large items like beverages or paper products, the stores end up having large stacks of product to deal with on delivery day. The back rooms are not large enough to handle this and the situation is just a mess.
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Re: Dollar Tree now considered "Severe Violator" by Washington Labor and Industries, Vancouver store fined $503k

Post by cjd »

Dollar Tree here has such limited staff I've started to not like going. They only have one or two registers open and the lines are backed up down the aisles sometimes. The employees seem stressed and overwhelmed and one time I went everyone was upset because of the long line and started complaining that they should open another line.

Because they don't have enough staff to really clean, the floors are always dirty with what looks like gum spots, dusty areas at the checkouts and dirty air vents and ceilings, etc. The store isn't overly messy though, the shelves look to be neat and tidy and there doesn't seem to be boxes or items blocking the aisles. I don't know but I can imagine the back room is probably messy though from the sounds of this.
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