Dollar Tree, etc.

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Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by veteran+ »

https://www.supermarketnews.com/retail- ... violations

Isn't that special......................

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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by storewanderer »

"The release stated that, since 2017, federal and state OSHA programs have identified over 300 violations in more than 500 inspections at Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores"

"Those violations include blocked exit routes, unsafe working areas and unsafely stacked boxes and merchandise "

"The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued citations to the company for three repeat violations and proposed $254,478 in penalties."

Let's see- $254,478 divided by 300 violations = average per violation of $848.26. Did that even pay for OSHA's labor to conduct/plan/report the inspections?

Sorry but this is a joke.

Quantity of inspections needs to increase significantly and fine needs to increase exponentially.
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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by Brian Lutz »

Dollar Tree stores have accumulated well over a million dollars in fines for safety violations from the Washington State Labor and Industries department since 2013, including a fine of $503k to a single store in Vancouver back in 2019, one of the largest fines issued by the L&I department.

http://www.retailwatchers.com/viewtopic.php?p=19842

As recently as November 2022 two stores in the Tacoma area were being fined a total of nearly $55,000 for safety violations, including blocked access to electrical panels and dangerously stacked boxes:

https://www.lni.wa.gov/news-events/article/22-33

At some point the fines are either going to have to increase significantly or the safety inspectors are going to need to be authorized to start shutting down stores.
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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by storewanderer »

At this point security camera systems are so cheap and data storage online is so easy, that a system should be developed that monitors the stores remotely for compliance with safety related matters. The cameras should trigger/detect when boxes are piled up 8 feet high and the stack of boxes is shaking around waiting to fall over. The cameras should trigger when something is obstructing the emergency exit.

But would these chains actually be willing to pay for such systems? Seems to me they should develop them internally. They have thousands of stores to spread the cost over. But it really isn't about cost, it is about doing the right thing for customers and employees.
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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by mjhale »

Brian Lutz wrote: March 3rd, 2023, 2:45 pm At some point the fines are either going to have to increase significantly or the safety inspectors are going to need to be authorized to start shutting down stores.
Shutting down the stores for a significant time to eat into profitability of the overall company is probably the only way to get anyone to really clean up operations. It is sort of like people who have excess funds see a parking ticket as the "cost of doing business". But impound their car and fine them a bunch and they have a greater chance of changing. The thing is if stores are closed due to safety violations the hourly employees loose out on work hours and the local management will be blamed for safety violations when in fact it was pressure from corporate policies that led to the local operations being the way they are. Corporate will come in and say we are changing (aka firing) local management to improve store operations. But then the cycle repeats itself because no one actually fixed expectations and operations as dictated by the corporate office.
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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by BillyGr »

mjhale wrote: March 5th, 2023, 5:06 am Shutting down the stores for a significant time to eat into profitability of the overall company is probably the only way to get anyone to really cleanup operations. It is sort of like people who have excess funds see a parking ticket as the "cost of doing business". But impound their car and fine them a bunch and they have a greater chance of changing. The thing is if stores are closed due to safety violations the hourly employees lose out on work hours and the local management will be blamed for safety violations when in fact it was pressure from corporate policies that led to the local operations being the way they are. Corporate will come in and say we are changing (aka firing) local management to improve store operations. But then the cycle repeats itself because no one actually fixed expectations and operations as dictated by the corporate office.
Perhaps the employees won't lose out - after all, SOMEONE has to fix the issues to get the store reopened, and if they are removing the existing managers, it seems the employees would be the ones to be there fixing it (since they weren't necessarily causing the problem, as it was those above them not giving them the time to do what was needed that caused them).
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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by storewanderer »

BillyGr wrote: March 5th, 2023, 1:31 pm
mjhale wrote: March 5th, 2023, 5:06 am Shutting down the stores for a significant time to eat into profitability of the overall company is probably the only way to get anyone to really cleanup operations. It is sort of like people who have excess funds see a parking ticket as the "cost of doing business". But impound their car and fine them a bunch and they have a greater chance of changing. The thing is if stores are closed due to safety violations the hourly employees lose out on work hours and the local management will be blamed for safety violations when in fact it was pressure from corporate policies that led to the local operations being the way they are. Corporate will come in and say we are changing (aka firing) local management to improve store operations. But then the cycle repeats itself because no one actually fixed expectations and operations as dictated by the corporate office.
Perhaps the employees won't lose out - after all, SOMEONE has to fix the issues to get the store reopened, and if they are removing the existing managers, it seems the employees would be the ones to be there fixing it (since they weren't necessarily causing the problem, as it was those above them not giving them the time to do what was needed that caused them).
It is difficult for me to say this but the problems with these stores are not with the store manager. They are also not with the district manager. The problems are much higher than that.

I know when you go into a store and see all these problems and you think to yourself I could fix this all in 20 minutes- where is the store manager? Do they ever walk their store? Then you go back 2 weeks later and nothing is fixed, maybe it is worse. Then you go where is the district manager? Didn't they visit this store and ream the store manager for these conditions?

Then there is what you don't know. What you don't know is the store manager is trying to hire employees for minimum wage and nobody will take the jobs. So the store manager runs the store alone multiple hours of the day every day. The store manager also has to deal with receiving the truck. Dollar Tree truck is a piece based truck (no pallets - every box is manually loaded off the truck into the back room- some stores have rollers some don't). The store manager is also responsible for all cash handling. The store manager also has to try to keep the few employees they do have. Meanwhile the district manager spends more time on conference calls and other scheduled tasks than actually walking the stores and the district manager is lucky to see each store more than about once every six weeks for 2 hours or so.

There are intrinsic problems with how this format is designed. If they can get enough employees to take jobs at the (too low) wages they pay, things work.

I would have thought after the Family Dollar Distribution Center incident that impacted what was it 250 stores for weeks and a huge inventory loss that this company would really do a heart to heart with itself and try to get things together.

They have a new CEO with Rick Dreiling who historically is not very patient with poor operations to put it lightly (anyone at Longs when he was there will tell you that) so we will see if anything changes.

They need to make a lot of process changes.
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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by veteran+ »

What a MESS, and for anyone operating a company like that in 2023 is astounding.

Hand unloading and/or rollers? That brings up memories when I was 16 years old.

From a consumer POV...................why shop there? Why waist your time?
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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by Romr123 »

The Dollar Tree nearby (Palm Springs) is actually quite a pleasant place...reasonably staffed, tidy, on-top of things--was in there (Stater Bros strip center on the north side of town) and a disturbed man came in--they were perfectly reasonable in giving him one chance to behave then calling for police response. That said, DG/FD are in general, hellscapes. I go into a DG about once every six months in our Michigan neighborhood, poke around for 10 minutes, then leave and say "why did I bother"
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Re: Dollar Tree, etc.

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: March 5th, 2023, 8:25 pm
BillyGr wrote: March 5th, 2023, 1:31 pm Perhaps the employees won't lose out - after all, SOMEONE has to fix the issues to get the store reopened, and if they are removing the existing managers, it seems the employees would be the ones to be there fixing it (since they weren't necessarily causing the problem, as it was those above them not giving them the time to do what was needed that caused them).
It is difficult for me to say this but the problems with these stores are not with the store manager. They are also not with the district manager. The problems are much higher than that.

There are intrinsic problems with how this format is designed. If they can get enough employees to take jobs at the (too low) wages they pay, things work.

I would have thought after the Family Dollar Distribution Center incident that impacted what was it 250 stores for weeks and a huge inventory loss that this company would really do a heart to heart with itself and try to get things together.

They have a new CEO with Rick Dreiling who historically is not very patient with poor operations to put it lightly (anyone at Longs when he was there will tell you that) so we will see if anything changes.

They need to make a lot of process changes.
In any case, they would still need to get the violations fixed, and it would be sensible to use those employees they do have so that they don't lose them and those employees don't lose pay (which is what the original post was suggesting would occur).
veteran+ wrote: March 6th, 2023, 7:43 am What a MESS, and for anyone operating a company like that in 2023 is astounding.

Hand unloading and/or rollers? That brings up memories when I was 16 years old.

From a consumer POV...................why shop there? Why waist your time?
Not being certain, but the one we had locally (that didn't stay due to the lease costs going up) is at ground level, so they didn't have a dock for a truck to back up to in order /to use pallets. Also, given the issues mentioned about back room space, they probably couldn't get one inside anyway!

From the customer point, it's not a WASTE of anything, since you can buy (some) items at a better price, and many people are more concerned about that than using a few extra minutes to stop at an additional store. Like any other store, you have to know what is better and what may not be.
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