our main story tonight concerns shopping an easy and enjoyable way to forget that you and everyone you know will one day die specifically it concerns one of the most ubiquitous places to go shopping in this country dollar stores the discount Outlets where you can get a variety of goods at sometimes a dollar or less and then position themselves with upbeat materials like this whether you're making a quick fill-in stop or stocking up for the week Dollar General helps you save on the things you need and the unexpected items that make shopping fun something new for the house a greeting card or a surprise for someone special ultimately we love helping our customers save time and money it's what drives us that's why more than 125,000 people have joined our team and we're growing every day wow they really captured a wide array of definitely human people in that ad they've got an old lady a nurse a man who absolutely does not have kids Molly ring walls and some idiot about to buy a bouquet of half inflated balloons today two companies dominate this particular Retail Landscape Dollar General and Dollar Tree which also owns Family Dollar these two corporations operate more than 35,000 dollar stores in the US that is more than all Walmart Starbucks and McDonald's combined and they have earnings to match last year Dollar General made 2.4 billion in profit while Dollar Tree made 1.6 billion and their growth has been fueled by targeting lowincome customers singling out communities that have been marginalized economically often rural areas and neighborhoods of color a former Dollar General CEO once described their customer base as being in a permanent recession and their current CEO summed up the business like this I would tell you we do very good in good times and we do fabulous in in bad times right it's a store that tends to do better when its customers are doing worse which isn't something that really requires use of the word fabulous fabulous is best used to describe a quirky hat or the cast of The Golden Bachelor or the fact that Kim control made a million dollars to sit in a car and not talk to Sarah Jessica Parker that is fabulous but a company bragging about how it can profit of financial hardship not so much you might have heard stories about how dollar stores impact the communities that they are in which can where they can be the only food retailer around in some cases that may be because they've driven others out in others it could be because they've entered a market that's already a food desert but either way customers often turn to these stores for their convenience and low prices although those prices can be a bit misleading as this clip from a few years ago demonstrates a Dollar Tree a two pack of Irish Spring soap costs a dollar at Target an eight pack cost $3.99 but if you look very closely the bars sold at Dollar Tree they're smaller so if you do the math Irish Spring by the ounce is actually more expensive at Dollar Tre right despite the promise of value you can end up getting less for more although I will say in the case of Irish Spring that's not necessarily a bad thing I'm just saying I personally don't want more of something that smells like a citrus burgot fart and leaves these money makers ashy as hell but the fact is if all you can afford for soap is a dollar right now a dollar store will sell it to you but look we're not going to focus on the location or pricing of dollar stores tonight we're going to focus on how they are run because if you've ever set foot in one you know they can look like a total disaster I really don't know where everybody else is getting their Dollar Trees cuz every single one I've ever walked into has looked like this oh yes shopping at the DG I need staples and they're about 20 ft down that way my God why does my Dollar Tree look like K look at this Dollar Tree like what the yeah what the is right those look less like functioning stores and more like American Ninja Warrior retail Edition they look like someone picked up a dollar store shook it and dumped it out into another dollar store and a quick shout out to the automated Tik Tok voice there trying to say the word Kaka she's doing her absolute best that is all that we can ask of her that and maybe to say naughty things like penis oh vagina oh Charles Manson was lowkey hot in a character act Griffin kind of exactly but to an extent that you may not realize that chaos isn't a one-off mistake or the fault of those stores employees it is The Natural end product of how the companies Behind These stores choose to operate them and if you think it can be bad shopping at a dollar store it is nothing compared to what it's like working there it's been said that working at Dollar General may be the worst retail job in America and if these stores are this ubiquitous make this much money and are this terrible to work for tonight as we get ready for Black Friday let's talk about dollar stores and let's start with the fact that one of the key ways that they squeeze margins isn't on Tiny soaps it's on labor costs they often have just two employees or sometimes even just one Manning the entire store just watch as this Dollar Tree customer discovers in real time that there is only one person working there only worker here only worker doing this with no shelves no nothing look at this they she's the only worker here everything Guys these people don't even work here and they're helping her look at this walls of boxes all by herself yeah of course the stores are going to look like that when there's only one person there to do everything it's so bad random dudes are pitching you to help her for free imagine how monumentally shitty a store would have to be for you a customer to walk in and say say oh they need me it reminds me of that famous Mr Rogers quote when you walk into a dollar store that looks like Chernobyl after the blast look for the helpers you will always find people who are helping and incidentally the people employed by dollar stores are not making much more than those volunteer helpers just watch as a former Dollar General worker points out the disparity between what the top execs make and what the rank and file do y'all out there riding damn expensive car y'all go out eat crabs and steak and fimon and esaro and all this meanwhile y'all workers are eating raymen noodles come on now y'all making millions think about it I want everybody to think about it let me know when did a dollar general worker make more than 20,000 in a whole year don't worry I'll wait excellent I've never heard a harsher insult than simply listing out Foods you assume someone else eat crabs steak filet minan escaro and all this she's describing a cartoon rich person and it's devastating I have no doubt that she she would take one look at me and go mushy peas figgy pudding and all that milk and I'd be wrecked and the thing is she's right about the numbers there the median compensated employee for Dollar General makes around $188,000 a year and a report two years ago found that 92% of Dollar General's staff was making less than $15 an hour that is a higher percentage than every other company they surveyed on top of that lawsuits and press reports have repeatedly documented Dollar General severely restricting the total hours it allocates in a week to non-managers and then expecting store managers who are salaried to cover the rest without overtime and without enough people to do everything from running the register to receiving truck deliveries to stocking the shelves to keeping prices updated and cleaning the bathrooms things can quickly fall apart just watch as this assistant manager sends up what is basically an SOS to the company okay this is a video for help to anyone inside this company that actually cares we are overloaded with Freight and we don't have enough hours in the week or per people in the week to put them away we are completely overwhelmed the back room is like this I can't even get to the cooler and I've got a milk delivery outside so hopefully it all goes out on the sales floor I don't know again this video is for anybody in the company that cares this is Travis Bennett the assistant manager at store 11132 wow it is not good if your employees are making Tik toks that look like hostage videos because that is not what Tik Tok is for as we all know is for finding out which anime character strangers would pork and seeing what you'd look like positively snatched but the problem with addressing that to anybody in the company that cares is that it sure seems like these companies ities do not care at all it is hard to overstate the indifference These Chains can show to their employees working conditions and not just in their stores but in some of their distribution centers too you may remember us showing you video of rats inside the Family Dollar store in White Haven and the company's distribution center in West Memphis Arkansas take another look right now federal inspectors say they have found more than a thousand rodents inside the same Distribution Center oh my goodness okay set aside the thousands rodents which I know is already a big ask I just want to take a second to acknowledge this little diva look at her not giving two shits about being fed a pringle other rats would pounce at the sight of that chip but not her she's giving it a blank look that says honey not even at my lowest she has got standards she has got taste she is Ratatouille to Absolute food for that FDA inspection not only found that more than a thousand dead rodents had been recovered at that Distribution Center last year but also that the company's own records showed that it collected more than 2,300 RS there the spring and summer before demonstrating and I quote a history of infestation but at that point it's less an infestation and more a flourishing community of rats establishing an internal order building out their environment probably exploring the Arts this was both a massive problem for family and a genuinely inspiring story of rodent fortitude now the company wants you to know that they've since shut down that distribution center and are thoroughly remodeling it but that's just one example in a horrifying pattern for dollar stores Dollar General also has had to temporarily close multiple stores and a distribution center for rat infestations and at one store in Oklahoma birds nested in the ceiling and I'm so serious started all over the merchandise not just that when the staff told hups in the company they say that they were ordered not to throw the soiled products out but to clean them in some cases by bringing them home to wash and then return them to the shelves and when that store's manager asked for help in removing the nest he said he got the sense that he was being ignored because the birds weren't stealing anything and look there are plenty of reasons to kick anyone or anything out of a store even if they aren't stealing anything and number one on that list is they're pooping everywhere I don't care if it's a bird or a toddler the second is part of the equation they've got to go now legally I do have to tell you Dollar General was asked about that bird story and its response was that it takes prompt action when stores make maintenance or repair requests which as statements go sounds to me a little bit like uh what's the word kaker that's right thank you very much and if you're thinking okay I'm convinced these stor sound like a terrible place to work I am not nearly Done Yet some Dollar General employees have said they are unable to control the thermostats at stores and others say that they don't have functioning heat and cooling systems at all the heat would cause all the candy to melt and I don't know if it was negatory on the medications but I mean I know they got to be climate controlled my assistant manager was sitting in there with ice packs down her pants and her shirt and a towel cuz we were just dripping and sweat that's not great an ice pack down the pants is not how you imagine a day at work going it is however how I imagine these two freaks and when you take all this together the heat the underst Staffing the boxes everywhere meaning you can't move around properly it is pretty clear these places aren't just unpleasant they're unsafe Dollar General is on OSHA's severe violators list racking up more than $25 million in proposed fin since 2017 for alleged violations spanning dozens of states and as for Dollar Tree in that same time frame o identified more than 400 violations in its stores imposing more than $13 million in fines now I have to say do Tre recently entered a settlement with OSHA and claims that it's implementing substantial safety policies procedures and training to safeguard the well-being of our Associates although you should also know they had a similar settlement back in 2015 and made similar promises back then so at best they are a slow learner here and there is one last indignity for dollar store employees and that is the threat of violence dollar stores have become magnets for crime and killing with employees at Dollar General saying they've been stabbed shot held at Point punched and Pistol whipped on the job and when a robbery does happen the response from corporate can be less than compassionate remember that worker talking about how the bosses were eating filet minion here she is talking about the day her store was robbed I was robbed at the same Dollar General where I currently worked I picked up my phone and called 911 I locked the door I secured the the customers I followed protocol called our manager she showed up I called our district manager like two or three times she didn't answer but when my manager called she answered the first question was is everybody okay the second thing she said what are we going to do about reopening the store we haven't even been robbed even dog on 10 to 15 minutes and you already talking about open it up the store that is ridiculous an armed robbery is a traumatic event people need time to recover from it's not something you can just ignore like a Spam call or a broken light bulb or any show on Apple TV did you know Octavia Spencer sted as a true crime podcaster on a show called truth be told for three seasons of course you didn't it's Apple TV where celebrities go to hide while researching this piece Dollar Store workers repeatedly told us how they feared for their safety and while these companies say that they take security concerns seriously experts have said that the level of violence may be down to how these stores are set up and organized having so few people working there with no security guard typically present makes them an incredibly enticing Target in Texas a Dollar General employee who had a coworker Die In Her Arms claimed in a lawsuit that her store had no lights at the back of the building and cash registers that didn't have Panic buttons and that the sign announcing a remotely monitored security system was a sham and at that point they might as well have just put up one of those inflatable floppy men holding a plunder me babe son at almost every turn dollar stores seem to treat their workers with either stunning indifference or outright contempt and some are getting so fed up they are walking out leading to stories like this we saw dozens of people trying to go inside Family Dollar this afternoon only to find the doors locked and no one inside Garfield resident Dodie burn went to Family Dollar on pen Avenue yesterday only to find this sign saying staff quit y'all be easy on the door yeah and that is not at all uncommon at another Family Dollar in Nebraska staff left this sign on the door we all quit sorry for the inconvenience and at the Dollar General in Maine workers left a series of signs reading closed indefinitely because Dollar General doesn't pay a living wage or treat their employees with respect and capitalism will destroy this country if you don't pay people enough to live their lives why should they slave away for you all of which is punctuated perfectly by the excited now hiring sign which really has it's work cut out for it and while those workers are justifiably walking out others are choosing to fight back over the past few years groups like stepup Louisiana and the Union of Southern service workers have staged strikes and protests against Dollar General but the company has pushed back hard in all the usual union busting ways in Connecticut when workers tried to organize Dollar General violated federal law by firing a pro-union worker illegally surveilling and interrogating employees and threatening to close the store they also make all new employees watch a video where they talk the very idea of joining a union which one worker filmed and posted online we don't believe that our employees need a third party or Union to come between us and Them our employees don't need a union to have their voices heard here at Dollar General I'm sorry your employees are able to get their voices heard are you sure about that cuz it seems like the guy pleading for aid from Tik Tok strangers might really beg to differ on that point so what is there to do well since 2019 at least 75 communities many of them lower income have actually blocked proposals to build new dollar stores but the truth is most of these stores are unlikely to go anywhere remember in many areas they're the only retailer around so much more attention needs to be paid to what workers have been saying and for years now Dollar Store workers at stepup Louisiana have developed a list of what they are asking for from these companies from things like having safe Staffing level lels to creating safe store infrastructure to giving workers a right to heal after violent incidents none of which is really asking much and until such time as these companies actually do these things they should at the very least have to be much more transparent when it comes to the retail and workplace experience that they're actually providing hi there here at Dollar bucket whether you're making a quick fill-in stop or stocking up for the week we've got everything you need like this roll of toilet paper or an adorable bar of Irish Spring dollar bucket helps you save on the things you need but also on the special treats that make life a little more well fun like this flaccid balloon or this bag of Skittle you mean Skittles nope a dollar bucket whatever you need we've got it somewhere uh-oh and oh always at the right price towels a dollar batteries a dollar this rat a dollar Gatorade Frost Arctic Blitz a dollar this other rat a dollar that last rat was pregnant so that's a twofer we love helping our customers save time and money that's why over 125,000 people have joined our team and we're growing every day hey I don't work here I'm just trying to get the milk refrigerated before it goes bad this place is well you better hurry we've got another shipment coming [Applause] in dollar buckets a proud provider of jobs in our communities take Brenda here she's our longest serving employee hey Brenda how long have you been with us I've been here for 3 weeks okay and it's a nightmare and I got ice packs in places only God and my husband should say okay I've been in an adult diaper cuz I can't go to the bathroom and we've been robbed three times since lunch and we still open Brenda if we closed every time we got robbed this store would never be open and you would not have a job young lady I've been here I'm so long I I don't know what day it is I keep hearing voices screaming Brenda help Brenda can you help me is a is that the voice okay this is a video for help to anyone inside this company that actually cares I can't leave the stock room there are too many boxes in the way and also the birds won't let me leave oh God br oh God is he okay what's happening to Travis doesn't matter what you don't understand is that your lives are insignificant your pain is our fuel the more you suffer the better we do this company was built on pain sweat tears and the tiniest little bars of doll soap you've ever seen in your worthless godamn lives number one go yourself I know ain't happen in a long time cuz that suit is tight oh it happens oh it did wa this morning Brenda really that's then you're going to have to pay a dollar for that I'll pay nothing cuz I quit can you read that I can it says I quit I quit bye-bye byebye byebye bye-bye [Applause] good hey you want a job we can pay you in rat babies how many dollar bucket giving everyone less while we get [Music] more
Good segment. Wish I hadn't seen the same argument 3 times before from different youtubers rehashing the same data but that's the strike's fault not the show.
Everybody please bow down to the Pลซteketeke for winning Bird of the Century!
Sometimes it's almost exciting when I start the show not knowing what John is going to ruin/expose that night. Definitely didn't see "dollar tree".