Avoiding another Black Friday tragedy

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is pushing the leaders of 14 major retail companies to take extra safety measures to prevent worker injuries on Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. OSHA recently sent a letter and fact sheet to a list of retailers including Walmart, at whose Valley Stream store a worker was trampled to death on Black Friday in 2008.

In a release earlier this month, OSHA stated that the Valley Stream Walmart store was not using the kind of crowd-management measures recommended by the agency when 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, a temporary employee, died in a stampede of shoppers. The retail giant challenged a $7,000 fine for Damour’s death ordered by OSHA earlier this year.

“Crowd-related injuries during special retail sales and promotional events have increased during recent years,” said Dr. David Michaels, OSHA’s assistant secretary. “Many of these incidents can be prevented by adopting a crowd-management plan, and this fact sheet provides retail employers with guidelines for avoiding injuries during the holiday shopping season.”

The fact sheet, titled “Crowd Management Safety Tips for Retailers,” offers guidelines for crowd management, according to Diana Petterson of OSHA’s Office of Public Affairs. Retailers should have trained security personnel or police officers on-site and barricades or rope lines for pedestrians, with crowd control in place before customers arrive at the store. Barricades should be set up so that customer lines do not start at the store’s entrance, and security personnel and customer service representatives should be present to explain approach and entrance procedures to the arriving public, the guidelines state.

In addition, OSHA recommends that once a store reaches maximum occupancy, no additional customers should be allowed in until others leave, and no exit doors should be blocked or locked. “OSHA encourages employers to plan for crowd management several weeks, or even months, in advance of sales events that draw large crowds,” Michaels said in a letter recently sent to 14 retail company CEOs, which also mentioned Damour’s death.

The Long Island office of OSHA began investigating Walmart after the incident. Damour died from asphyxiation when an estimated crowd of 2,000 shoppers stormed through the doors, trampling him just before the store’s 5 a.m. opening the day after Thanksgiving. OSHA leveled the fine as a penalty for what it described as a “violation of a general duty to protect employees.”

But Walmart, which reached an agreement with the Nassau County district attorney’s office, did not accept the penalty, and appeared before a federal appeals commission in July to fight it. The case is still in litigation.

“We participated in that OSHA hearing back in 2008,” said Greg Rossiter, Walmart’s director of corporate communications. “We all continue to be saddened by the incident with Damour’s death. We never had anything like that happen before.”

In response to OSHA’s issuance of safety guidelines, Rossiter said that Walmart is committed to making stores safer, especially the Valley Stream store, for customers during this holiday season. “I think we have done that,” he said.

To help customers get products more quickly, easily and safely, Rossiter explained, store personnel will focus their attention on the flow of customers in three key areas on Black Friday — their approach and entry into the store, their movement around merchandise and their movement through the checkout aisles to the exits.

The stores, which will be open 24 hours, will offer in-store specials starting as early as midnight on Thanksgiving, according to Rossiter. There will be store maps, featuring merchandise, that customers can download in advance from the company’s website. “We are confident our customers will have a safe and enjoyable holiday shopping experience,” Rossiter said.

Last year, Walmart met with safety experts from the sports and entertainment industries to develop store-specific plans for all of its U.S. locations. Rossiter said that the company worked with nationally recognized crowd-management experts to “create and implement a successful, comprehensive and first-of-its-kind nationwide plan that incorporates proven crowd-management techniques into the unique circumstances of a retail setting.”

As a result of a settlement with Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice early last year, the company was required to implement new crowd-control strategies in all 92 of its New York stores.

The Nassau County Police Department’s 5th Precinct will provide additional police officers at the Valley Stream store next Friday, according to officer Linda Ferrara. She said that the department is currently trying to find out what time each of the big retail stores in the area will open, so it can provide adequate safety at all major stores.

“Nothing is set in stone yet because we are still reviewing,” Ferrara said. The department planned to release a report on its Black Friday procedures on Nov. 18.