How to Hold Dollar Store Chains Accountable and Protect Communities

This article is the third in a four-part series, Defying the Odds: How Southern Workers Organize, a co-production of NPQ and the LIFT Fund. In this series, authors share some compelling ways that workers are successfully organizing and why these efforts merit widespread support.

Any plan to transform the US South so that everyone can thrive must include holding ubiquitous dollar store chains accountable for their role in extracting billions of dollars from communities while failing to ensure that the workers they employ can earn a decent living.

With low overhead, abysmal wages, and largely nonperishable inventory, dollar store chains can easily be located nearly anywhere, including in small communities. Dollar chains are especially concentrated across the US South. In Louisiana alone, there are two dollar stores for every 10,000 people and almost half of those stores are in counties with fewer than 100 people per square mile. Their ubiquity has made dollar stores a Southern staple that is often the only choice for communities’ basic needs.

While these stores continue to make money for shareholders, workers face a relentless grind of poverty wages, unsafe working conditions, and corporate-driven understaffing that puts safety at risk. At Step Up Louisiana, we are committed to changing these unjust realities through community organizing, direct action, and systemic advocacy.

Advancing Economic Justice for Dollar Store Workers

As a community-based organization that campaigns for education and economic justice, Step Up Louisiana works across racial and generational lines to hold public officials accountable. Our organization brings parents, workers, students, and community members together to challenge the structures of injustice through voter education, advocacy, and direct action. We unite around one mission: disrupting systemic oppression in workplaces and schools. That includes organizing for justice for dollar store workers.

To start, the working conditions at these stores are horrifying. They include widespread reports of blocked exits, understaffing, and violent incidents—many of which have gone viral. Workers have been stabbed, shot, and held at gunpoint.

“We’re trying to survive and be better in life, but we can’t do that while we’re looking over our shoulders at work, praying for safety, and getting paid so little.”

Employees must at times use flashlights to navigate the aisles in stores with no power. Many employees are forced to work long hours of unpaid overtime, all while facing increasing pressure to meet corporate-driven quotas. Dollar General has faced repeated citations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and was added to OSHA’s “Severe Violators” list in 2023.

When Step Up Louisiana’s dollar store worker leaders drive across the state to talk to others about the changes they want to see, the number one issue is increased safety. The dream of earning a living without risking their lives is often what moves workers to come to an organizing meeting or to participate in an action, despite the looming threat of retaliation and perhaps losing a job that pays as little as $9 per hour.

Shawn Byrd, who works at a Family Dollar in New Orleans is one of those activists. In September 2022, while working at the store register, Byrd helped a seriously wounded gunshot victim who came into his store until an ambulance arrived. After the victim was transported, Byrd had to clean up the gruesome scene in the store, help other customers, and come back to work the next day. Since then, he has organized and spoken at rallies, marches, and other actions to demand changes such as increased staffing in stores, especially at night.

In Louisiana alone, there are two dollar stores for every 10,000 people.

Byrd and Step Up Louisiana’s work is having an impact. At our first Dollar General shareholder meeting protest in May 2022, national civil rights leader Rev. William Barber II joined workers and community leaders at the company’s headquarters in Goodlettsville, TN. We were denied access to the meeting but held a rousing protest outside where Barber recognized dollar store workers’ progress and commitment.

“You’ve been fighting and organizing for four years because you wanted to build your strength before you use it,” said Barber. “Now is the time to start demanding your labor rights, because you have built that foundation.”

One year later, in May 2023, after continued pressure and organizing, Dollar General shareholders approved an independent audit of the company’s worker safety practices, despite the company’s objection.

Later that year, Dollar General’s CEO Jeff Owen resigned. The company also agreed to a $12 million settlement with OSHA, which was quickly followed with a similar settlement agreement with Dollar Tree. These settlements also include significant safety improvements, such as more safety managers, better stocking practices, and enhanced safety training.

In New Orleans, these national victories are having a tangible impact. Local Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar employees have received a $3 hourly raise. Nonetheless, wages still average only $14 an hour.

The momentum continues to grow as more workers join the campaign across the South. At the May 2024 Dollar General shareholders meeting, more than 200 workers gathered in Goodlettsville again to take their demands directly to decision-makers.

A Broader Vision

For worker leaders like David Williams, a stocker at Dollar General in the Hollygrove neighborhood in New Orleans, this is just the beginning. Williams, who has become a leading voice in the campaign for safe stores and who has spoken directly to shareholders and Dollar General’s chief executive officer, continues to push for further changes. He was honored in 2023 with the Health and Safety Activist Award at the National Conference on Worker Safety and Health and has delivered powerful statements at shareholder meetings. Williams continues to call for more equitable worker treatment.

The working conditions at dollar store chains are horrifying. They include widespread reports of blocked exits, understaffing, and violent incidents.

“We just want better for all workers. We’re trying to survive and be better in life, but we can’t do that while we’re looking over our shoulders at work, praying for safety, and getting paid so little. We really need to see results moving forward,” he says. “We want better for the company we’re working for—better for the customers, better for the employees.”

Dollar chain workers’ goals are bold but necessary. They include an insistence that Dollar General and other dollar store chains meet the safety standards they have long ignored. Another goal is a living wage of $25 per hour, so people can earn the pay they deserve for their labor, and so they can provide for themselves and their families without fear of harm or the uncertainty of living paycheck to paycheck.

That economic precariousness is often hard to overcome, especially for Black and Brown workers in the South. It is no coincidence that Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee—the five states with no minimum wage, meaning the only minimum wage in effect is the miserly federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour—are in a region steeped in a history of systemic racism and oppression, anti-worker policies, and a sustained lack of investment in communities of color.

At Step Up Louisiana, we stand at the forefront of this fight for dignity, respect, and justice. We are committed to building a future where workers are not left behind, where they can work in safe environments, and where they are compensated fairly for their contributions. The work is far from done, but the growing movement is undeniable. Workers are making their voices heard. Together, we will create a South and a nation where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.