- Family Dollar managers told Insider they worked as many as 90 hours a week and didn't get overtime.
- They dealt with robberies, injuries, and natural disasters for annual pay under $50,000.
- The company used private arbitration to keep their claims hidden, but Insider found them.
During her first year as a store manager at a Family Dollar in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Aimee Hargrove had to rush her teenage son to an emergency surgery to remove his appendix. The boy spent a few days in the hospital to recover, and Hargrove hoped to spend that time with him.
But she couldn't miss work. Her district manager wouldn't give her the time off. Hargrove slept next to her son in the hospital and then still had to work the closing shift at the Family Dollar, staying until about 10 p.m.
"The expectations were so high," she said in a recent interview.
On top of that, Hargrove claims she was underpaid throughout her tenure at the store. She said she routinely worked up to 90 hours a week, far more than the 52 she was supposed to work as a salaried employee. She said she made about $800 a week — about $15 an hour if she stuck to her scheduled 52 hours, but about $10 an hour when she worked 80.
Her story isn't unique. Insider spoke with more than 30 former employees at Family Dollar, including some who said they were forced to work 80-hour weeks in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Some said they were held up at gunpoint. Some said that their bodies broke down during work and that they needed surgeries after to fix medical problems. Some even slept at work.
The former employees, who were largely managers, said they were generally paid less than $50,000 a year, with no overtime, even though they regularly worked long hours. Under US labor laws, employers generally don't need to pay managers overtime. But conversations with the former Family Dollar managers suggested that they were managers in name only and that the company may have called them that in order to avoid paying them overtime. They told Insider that they spent much of their time working cash registers, stocking shelves, and doing other nonmanagerial tasks in conditions that led to injuries and exhaustion.
The former employees who spoke with Insider didn't sue Family Dollar in court. They weren't allowed to. That's because, like many corporations, Family Dollar now requires employees to sign away their right to benefit from a large-scale lawsuit.
Their complaints have been kept secret until now.