The Occupational Safety & Health Administration of the Department of Labor issued a fact sheet on safety tips regarding Crowd Control for retailers this week. Among the important reminders were these gems:
Have trained security or crowd management
personnel or police officers on site;
And to prevent flying objects:
Locate shopping carts and other potential obstacles or projectiles inside the store and away from the entrance;
And just in case shit gets out of hand:
Designate an employee to contact local emergency responders.
Obviously, this is in response to a trampling death at a Wal-Mart in Long Island last year, and the fact sheet even says so up front. But the question begs, is this really necessary? At the very least, Wal-Mart is already taking steps to prevent another such tragedy. It would seem as if it were in the best interest of other retailers to do the same as to avoid a similar PR fiasco.
On the other hand, you would expect there to be heavy consequences for alleged negligence on the part of Wal-Mart. Well, the Department of Labor vowed to make an example of this case and eventually doled out a whopping $7,000 fine. (Disclaimer: I work for DOL.) A more substantial cost was a settlement for $1.9 million in which the criminal case was dropped; still a drop in the bucket compared to their $406 billion in revenues in 2008.
So if the legal ramifications only total up to $17,000 – the maximum fines including $10,000 from the DA and $7,000 from OSHA – what is the point of even filing a suit which will inevitably cost much more than that to prosecute? Keep in mind the downside of bad press is obviously much more damaging, even to a smaller retailer.
Additionally, are these ’safety tips’ serving their purpose or are they just common sense that doesn’t require the DOL agency to tell retailers? I’d argue for the latter, but I feel as though the only way to put the fear of science into the retail industry would be to increase the maximum fines. Such incidents could put a dent in the profits of smaller retailers even though the only (realistic) deterrent for the Wal-Marts of the world is bad publicity.
Finally, don’t for a second think that the upstanding citizens that shop at these fine establishments get off the hook. It’s really sad (and a reflection on our consumer society?) that people can’t control their urge to shop like an idiot on our unofficial max-out-all-our-credit-cards holiday.
Now I know a bangin’ deal at Wal-Mart is hard to resist for many, but does this mean we have to trample people in reckless abandon to be FIRST into the store? There is no escaping the personal responsibility for such careless actions, yet it’s hard to track down the trampler(s) when there are hundreds (thousands?) of pushing and shoving idiots trying to get through a sliding glass door or two. Americans be shoppin’.
So, in summary, we can probably avoid such a tragedy in the future if we: (a) are prepared for the inevitable mass chaos, (b) do a better job of imposing penalties if/when this happens again, and (c) try to not act like we’re at a 1979 Who concert in Cincinnati if you do choose to head out on this science-forsaken ‘holiday’.
Maybe then, OSHA won’t have to give us friendly 3-page reminders to have a SWAT team on hand to control the crowds and an emergency dispatcher to phone in the carnage.