Dollar General faces shareholder push for human rights policy study

A coalition of Dollar General shareholders is pressing the company to study whether it should adopt a comprehensive human-rights policy, turning the May 28 annual meeting into a test of how far the retailer is willing to go beyond its existing conduct rules.

In a May 21 exempt-solicitation filing, Presbyterian Life & Witness and Mercy Investment Services urged investors to back Proposal 5, which asks Dollar General’s board to report on the feasibility of a policy aligned with international human-rights standards. The proposal would spell out how the company identifies, prevents and responds to harm across its operations and value chain, a scope that goes beyond a narrow safety review and reaches worker organizing, health and safety, and other labor disputes.

For store associates, district managers and others on the ground, that difference matters. A broader human-rights policy could affect how quickly complaints move up the chain when a store is short-staffed, whether scheduling pressure is treated as a labor risk, and how seriously management escalates safety concerns after an injury or other incident. Proponents say the issue is not just ethical but practical: they argue stronger human-rights governance could reduce legal, financial and reputational risk while forcing Dollar General to explain where its current approach falls short of recognized frameworks and corporate peers.

The push comes against a long record of worker-safety scrutiny. In 2023, shareholders approved a proposal for an independent third-party worker-safety audit with more than 77% support. Mercy Investment Services has said Dollar General did not engage meaningfully with backers after that vote and instead carried out its own private audit. Then, on July 11, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a corporate-wide OSHA settlement with Dollar General and its retail subsidiaries that required workplace safety improvements nationwide and included $12 million in penalties.

That history is why the 2026 proposal is broader than the earlier safety fight. Mercy Investment Services and five co-filers advanced a similar human-rights resolution in 2025, saying labor controversies tied to worker organizing, health and safety, and related issues create legal, financial and reputational risk. A UN PRI posting describing the effort said it would ask Dollar General to adopt a policy covering steps to identify, assess, prevent, mitigate and, where appropriate, remedy adverse human-rights impacts.

Dollar General’s scale gives the vote extra weight. Its 2024 annual report said the company operated 20,594 Dollar General, DG Market, DGX and pOpshelf stores across the United States and Mi Súper Dollar General stores in Mexico as of January 31, 2025. The company’s 2026 proxy materials say the meeting will be held virtually, and shareholders will vote on multiple governance matters in addition to Proposal 5.

The central question is whether Dollar General wants to keep treating worker concerns as separate safety or conduct issues, or whether it will be pushed toward a broader policy that ties staffing pressure, complaints handling and store-level risk into one framework.