Employees at Valley Dollar Store claim they're working without air conditioning

PHOENIX (FOX 10) - Employees at a Dollar Store say there's no air conditioning in the store, and it's getting dangerously hot.

According to the employees, the AC has been broken for nearly a month, and with the extreme heat, they say the workplace is extremely hot and uncomfortable. Some foods even melted.

According to an employee, the AC was out for about three weeks before a repair crew came out and fixed it. Still, no cold air came out of the AC, and they've been asking their corporate managers for a week now to have someone come out again to fix it.

"It was 96 in there," said Andrea Thundercloud. who has worked at this location for about a month. She said the AC has not been working the entire time she's been there.

"Kinda upsets me knowing that corporate is not taking care of their employees," said Thundercloud. "My store manager, she's given us water to try and keep us cool. Tells us to try not to move around too much so we don't get too much heat. We try the best we can."

There were a few fans running by the register, but they provide no relief for other employees on the sales floor. There has been an attempt to fix the problem.

"They put a new fuse in. That's what the AC guy said needed to be changed, so they did that. After that, it was still about the same," said Thundercloud.

Thundercloud and about half a dozen other workers continue to sweat it out. Over the past seven days, Phoenix has experienced extreme heat, and conditions inside the store have worsened.

"I've gotten sick from the heat because it's just been so bad. It's horrible," said Thundercloud. "The candies are all melted. All the chocolates melted. Customers looking at us saying, 'you're trying to sell this?' We don't have a choice."

According to employees, a corporate manager did visit this store Wednesday morning. FOX 10 has reached out to Dollar Store, Inc., which owns the Family Dollar store location. In a statement, company officials said:

"We are aware of the situation, and are in the process of resolving the issue as soon as possible."

It's unknown why the company has taken this long to resolve the AC problem, and no fix date has been given.