Save Lives.
Live Better.

How to Protect Workers Amid Walmart’s Workplace Violence Crisis

For decades Walmart has held the distinction of number one retailer, grocer, and private employer in the United States.

Policymakers, economists, and labor advocates have long and rightly scrutinized and criticized the company's outsized influence and adverse impacts on the U.S. labor market and economy. Less attention has been given to the high frequency of workplace violence and gun-related injuries and deaths at Walmart.

Moreover, as the largest employer of Black people and women in the U.S., workplace violence at Walmart has significant racial and gender equity implications that require action by company leadership and elected officials at all levels of government.

United for Respect Education Fund analyzed local and national news coverage of incidents of violent acts, shootings, physical attacks, and altercations that resulted in injuries or deaths at Walmart stores between January 1 and December 31, 2023. We also reviewed updated data on gun-related incidents in retail/grocery settings published by Guns Down America. When looked at together, the data exposes just how dangerous and deadly working at Walmart can be.

Five years after the horrific 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, racially motivated and violent attacks continue to occur at an alarming rate at Walmart stores across the country.

It’s time to change that.

As the largest private employer in the country, Walmart is well-positioned to tackle the menace of workplace violence. By establishing higher safety protocols, Walmart could set a new industry standard, help reduce gun-related injuries and deaths, and contribute to saving lives.

We hope the findings in this report motivate company leadership and policymakers to join Walmart associates in their efforts to make Walmart a safer place to work and shop.

This report is dedicated to the victims of the El Paso shooting and to every associate and customer who has lost their lives while working or shopping at Walmart.

Key Findings

Walmart is a dangerous place to work and shop.

There were over 200 distinct incidents of violence at Walmart stores across the country between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2023, and at least 1 violent incident at a store was reported every month during this period.

Incidents varied in severity but included: 132 gun violence incidents, 26 bomb threats, 31 physical assaults, 11 incidents involving the discovery of a deceased person, 10 incidents involving the violent use of a vehicle, and one incident involving the use of arson to invoke harm.

Walmart leads its (grocery) peers in gun-related injuries and deaths.

Between January 1, 2020, and March 20, 2024, there were 473 gun-related incidents, which included 104 gun-related deaths at Walmart stores, meaning 1 out of every 10 Walmart stores in the U.S. experienced a gun-related injury or death during the period.

By comparison, Kroger, the second largest grocer in the country, experienced 54 gun-related incidents during the same time period, which translates to an incident in 1 out of every 52 stores. Grocery chains like Whole Foods, Costco, Stop & Shop, and HEB each experienced less than 10 gun-related incidents over the same period.

Incidents of workplace violence are concentrated in the South.

Half of all violent incidents (51%) occurred in the Southern United States and 6 of the top 10 states, in terms of number of violent incidents, are located in the South: North Carolina (16 incidents), Texas (16 incidents), South Carolina (14 incidents), Florida (13 incidents), Alabama (12 incidents), and Georgia (11 incidents).

Existing safety protocols and policies fail to protect associates.

While Walmart leadership touts numerous measures in place to promote safety and security, the frequency of violent incidents resulting in injury or death in and around Walmart stores indicates current workplace violence prevention efforts are ineffective. For example, associates report that Walmart’s active shooter training is done via a computer module.

Key Recommendations

Every person deserves to be safe at work and every employer has an obligation to implement common sense safety measures to protect its employees. As the largest private employer in the United States, Walmart’s policies and track record have an enormous influence on retail industry standards and national workplace trends. Creating a healthy and safe workplace for Walmart associates would protect millions of people who work and shop at Walmart while raising the bar for other employers, in and outside of retail.

Ushering in the protections necessary to safeguard the health and lives of Walmart associates will require action by company leadership and public policy intervention.

To protect the health and lives of frontline associates, Walmart must provide:

Enhanced Safety Procedures and Protocols

Independent assessment of current safety and workplace violence prevention policies. Investment in robust training programs (not computer modules) that provide associates with tools to de-escalate tense encounters and respond to active shooter situations; install panic buttons in stores; perform regular safety audits with worker input; track and publicly disclose the number, location, and type of violent incidents on a quarterly basis.

Healthcare for All Hourly Employees

Provide quality employer-paid healthcare and cover premiums for all employees, including part-time associates. Coverage should include mental health services, physical therapy, and rehabilitative services.

Paid Time Off to Heal

Any associate who witnesses a violent incident or attack while on the job should receive paid time off to recover emotionally and physically. Walmart should cover all out-of-pocket medical expenses for associates who are victims of violence while on the job, and provide paid time off separate and distinct from existing paid leave accruals.

Job Protections

Guarantee the seniority, position and pay rate of any associate who must take extended time off due to workplace violence. If their position is filled due to company staffing needs, Walmart should provide an equivalent position at the same rate of pay or higher upon their return to work.

Associate Input on New Safety Policies

Hourly associates should have input into policies designed to keep them safe. Frontline workers possess a unique perspective that is essential to the creation and effective implementation of any new safety measure.

Policymakers can help address workplace violence through public policy interventions, including but not limited to:

Protecting America’s Workers Act (H.R. 2998)

This legislation would update the 50-year old Occupational Health and Safety Act by expanding protections for whistleblowers and employees who aid inspections; direct employers to provide a hazard-free place of employment to all individuals performing work, not just employees; require the Department of Labor to investigate fatalities or significant incidents in the workplace; establish rights for victims with respect to inspections or investigations of work-related bodily injuries or deaths; increase civil and criminal penalties for certain violations; expand enforcement requirements relating to state occupational safety and health plans; expand requirements for workplace health hazard evaluations by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Comprehensive Workplace Violence Prevention Legislation

It’s time for our government to require employers to implement a workplace violence prevention plan, maintain a violent incident log, and provide employees with workplace violence prevention training. Relevant examples include California’s SB-533, which went into effect on July 1, 2024, and requires employers to implement basic measures to protect workers across industries from violence while they’re on the clock. New York’s legislature passed the Retail Worker Safety Act (S8358B) in January 2024 to address a spike in workplace violence in retail settings.

General Industry Workplace Violence OSHA Standard

This must facilitate agency inspections and the issuance of citations and penalties for employers who fail to identify and remedy workplace violence hazards or respond to potential threats while also protecting whistleblowers. Cal/OSHA’s Healthcare Workplace Violence Standard which protects healthcare workers from violence, is a relevant standard that could protect all workers.

Our Analysis

Over the course of its nearly 60-year history Walmart has proven itself capable of weathering industry shifts, both seismic and small. Despite intense competition from Amazon and a global pandemic that profoundly transformed consumer preferences and the speed of logistics, Walmart has held the position of number one retailer in the United States since 1990 and has been the biggest private employer in the world since 1999.

Its policies and practices have an outsized impact on BIPOC and female workers because Walmart employs more Black people and women than any other company in the United States.

The adverse impact Walmart has on the U.S. labor market and economy has been documented and scrutinized for years. Less attention has been given to the prevalence of workplace violence and gun-related injuries and deaths that directly harm Walmart associates and customers.

United for Respect Education Fund analyzed local and national news coverage of incidents of violent acts, shootings, physical attacks, and altercations that resulted in injuries or deaths at Walmart locations between January 1 and December 31, 2023, and reviewed updated data published by Guns Down America on gun-related incidents in retail/grocery settings.

When looked at together, the data indicates that Walmart is a particularly dangerous and potentially deadly place to work.

As the largest private employer in the country, Walmart is well-positioned to tackle the menace of workplace violence. By establishing higher safety protocols, Walmart could set a new industry standard, help reduce gun-related injuries and deaths, and contribute to saving lives.

Workplace Violence is an Occupational Hazard at Walmart

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as:

any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. It ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assault and even homicide. It can affect and involve employees, clients, customers, and visitors.

OSHA has identified workplace violence as the third leading cause of fatal occupational injury at the workplace.

Walmart associates, like other retail and service workers, grapple with occupational hazards related to workplace violence that can result in serious injury and fatality, ranging from physical altercations with customers and co-workers, to accidental firearm discharges, armed robbery, knife attacks, and even mass shootings.

Our review of local and national news coverage of violent incidents at Walmart stores identified 211 distinct incidents of violence between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2023.

The incidents we identified varied in severity but included: 132 gun violence incidents, 26 bomb threats, 31 physical assaults, 11 discoveries of a deceased person, 10 involved the violent use of a vehicle, and 1 arson incident. (See Appendix I for a complete list of incidents with details and locations.)

Incidents of Workplace Violence at Walmart by type (2023):

There was at least 1 violent incident reported at a Walmart store every month during the period. Sadly these incidents took a human toll — 126 people were injured and 50 people lost their lives as a result of these episodes.

Walmart’s Gun Violence Problem

The vast majority of workplace violence at Walmart in 2023 involved gun-related injuries and deaths. While mass shootings make headlines whenever and wherever they occur, not every shooting at or near a Walmart store receives national news coverage, which distorts public perception of the actual risks Walmart associates face.

While most people are familiar with the horrific August 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas where a gunman killed 23 people and injured two dozen more, in a racially motivated hate crime targeting Latinos, it was not the first or the last lethal shooting at a Walmart store.

Below is a list of just some of the gun-related incidents at Walmart stores between 2014-2024:

• August 2014: A 22-year-old African-American man named John Crawford III was shot and killed by a police officer in a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio while he was holding a BB gun that was for sale in the store.

• April 2015: Cops were called to an Arizona Walmart store in response to the physical assault of a Walmart employee. Upon arriving at the scene, a brawl broke out in the store parking lot between police officers and the family who had assaulted the employee, which left one suspect dead, and another suspect and officer shot.

• November 2017: Scott Ostrem walked into a Walmart in Thornton, Colorado, with a gun where he then killed three people standing in a checkout line.

• November 2022: Six associates at a Walmart store in Chesapeake, Virginia were killed on the job in a tragic mass shooting perpetrated by a Walmart manager.

• November 2023: Another racially motivated mass shooting occurred at a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio, wounding four people.

• February 2024: A Walmart associate in Tennessee was shot by a man stealing a bag of chips and a drink.

• March 2024: An 18-year-old Walmart associate was stabbed to death in a racially motivated attack in an Illinois store.

• June 2024: A heated exchange inside a Walmart store in Nashville, Tennessee escalated into a shooting in the parking lot, injuring one person.

According to updated research published by Guns Down America, there were at least 473 gun-related incidents and 104 gun-related deaths at Walmart stores between January 1, 2020 and March 20, 2024. By comparison, Kroger experienced 54 gun-related incidents during the same time period. Grocery chains like Whole Foods, Costco, Stop & Shop, and HEB each experienced less than 10 gun-related incidents over the same period.

Source: Guns Down America

These numbers cannot be explained away by Walmart’s enormous retail store footprint. The company is an outlier even when this is taken into account. There are approximately 4,600 Walmart retail locations in the United States. Kroger, the second largest grocer in the U.S, has 2,750 retail store locations. Dividing the total number of gun-related injuries and deaths by each company’s total number of stores makes this point abundantly clear. For Walmart, 1 out of every 10 stores in the U.S. experienced a gun-related injury or death during the period reviewed by Guns Down America. For Kroger, that number dropped precipitously to 1 out of every 52 stores.

Workplace Violence at Walmart is Concentrated in Southern States

While incidents of workplace violence, including gun violence, occur at Walmart stores in every region of the country, there is a notable concentration in the Southern states. In 2023, 109 of the 211 incidents (51%) we identified happened in the regional South. Meanwhile, the Midwest was home to 42 of the 211 incidents (20%). 33 of the incidents happened in the West (16%) and 27 in the North (13%).

While this spread is proportional to Walmart’s geographic store distribution, the fact remains that workplace violence at Walmart is prevalent in the South, a region already plagued by poverty wages, minimal business regulation, low income and corporate taxes, a weak social safety net, and an anti-union political landscape. Conditions that Walmart, as the largest employer in many Southern states, contributes to.

Interestingly, when this data is broken down by state, the trend holds.

Of the top 10 states, by number of violent incidents, 6 are located in the South:

• Texas (16 incidents)

• North Carolina (16 incidents)

• South Carolina (14 incidents)

• Florida (13 incidents)

• Alabama (12 incidents)

• Georgia (11 incidents)

• Pennsylvania (11 incidents)

• California (9 incidents)

• Ohio (9 incidents)

• Illinois (8 incidents)

Incidents of workplace violence at Walmart by state, 2023:

Walmart’s Workplace Violence Prevention Policies Fail to Protect Associates

The frequency and scale with which violent incidents, particularly gun-related injuries and deaths, occur at Walmart stores is evidence that existing workplace violence prevention protocols are not effective.

Moreover, long-term associates report that the company’s active shooter training via computer module does not adequately prepare them to deal with a real life situation on the ground.

Despite the high incidents of workplace violence over the past decade, Walmart has double-downed on its ineffective policies and protocols. In its 2024 Proxy Statement, Walmart claims to take a “comprehensive approach to promoting safety and security” in its stores. Specific policies and practices cited include:

• Training on workplace violence awareness and prevention;

• Monitoring and responding to risks and incidents, including risk-based assessments, incident response, investigations, and remedial action;

• Coordinating closely with law enforcement;

• Leveraging new technology, such as virtual reality training and risk identification;

• Improving associate-facing messaging to enhance awareness of and response to risks.

A related concern is Walmart’s compliance with environmental, health, and safety laws designed to protect associates and customers. An investigative report published by The New Republic in January 2024 found that “several injury and illness cases that should have been reported to OSHA weren’t, according to government data, court records, and interviews with associates,” raising the possibility that Walmart is not reporting every illness and injury to OSHA, as required by law.

Given the evidence that, at minimum, there are gaps and inefficiencies, Walmart should conduct an independent, third-party assessment of existing company policies and protocols and commit to a plan of action that strengthens its approach to safety and security in the workplace.

Conclusion

Our analysis exposes Walmart as a dangerous and sometimes deadly place to work.

Walmart’s claims that injuries related to violence are not common and that its safety record is on par with industry peers are simply not supported by the data we review and summarize above.

In 2023, a violent incident at Walmart was reported every month and the company led its (grocery) peers in gun-related injuries and deaths by a huge margin. Moreover, the prevalence of violent incidents at Walmart stores in the South, which has the highest concentration (56%) of Black people in the United States and the lowest median wages, demands closer scrutiny and immediate action by company leadership and policy makers at every level of government.

As America’s largest private employer, Walmart’s policies and track record have an enormous influence on retail industry standards and national workplace trends. Creating a healthy and safe workplace for Walmart associates could protect millions of people who work and shop at Walmart while raising the bar for other employers, in and outside of retail.

We hope the findings in this report motivate both Walmart executives and policymakers to take meaningful steps to make Walmart a safer place for everyone to work and shop.

Appendix I:

Detailed List of Violent Incidents at Walmart in 2023 (Sorted by State)