Nearly four in five of Usdaw trade union members working in retail are being abused, threatened and assaulted for simply doing their job, the union says on release of its latest survey of members.
The survey echoes others by the trade that find the two top issues that trigger incidents are customer frustration (for instance if they cannot find an item on shelves, or they are told they may not buy alcohol due to being under-age or drunk) and theft from shops (when the trigger is staff intervening against thieves). For the report in full, visit the Usdaw website.
Usdaw general secretary Joanne Thomas says: โParticularly worrying is the rise of customer frustration as a trigger of incidents. Self-service checkouts, lack of stock on the shelves and low staffing levels have all been identified as issues by our members that can lead to customers taking out their frustrations with staff. We have long campaigned with the general public asking them to โkeep their coolโ and respect retail workers. We will be taking our survey findings to retail employers as we continue to make the case for safe staffing levels and reminding them that retail workers are the face of the business and they should be valued, supported and treated with decency.
โTheft from shops and armed robbery were triggers for over two-thirds of incidents. Our members tell me that they are often faced with hardened career criminals and we know that retail workers are much more likely to be abused by those who are stealing to sell goods on. While there has been a small improvement in recorded shoplifting statistics, more needs to be done.
โSo, we welcome the Crime and Policing Bill, which includes a much-needed protection of shop workersโ law; ending the indefensible ยฃ200 threshold for prosecuting shoplifters and Respect Orders for offenders. Scotland already has a protection of retail workers law and the Northern Ireland Executive has agreed to introduce a similar measure. After many years of campaigning alongside retail employers, it really now feels like governments are listening and taking action to give all retail workers across the UK the protections and respect they deserve.”
Drivers
Separately last year, the union surveyed retail home delivery drivers, working mainly in the grocery sector, that ‘face significant levels of abuse, threats and violence when undertaking their job role, comparable to their colleagues in retail stores’.
Meanwhile, another union the GMB has called for a new specific offence of assaults on transport workers. Labour’s flagship Crime and Policing Bill, the first law and order legislation by the Sir Keir Starmer Government, will introduce a stand-alone offence of assaulting a retail workerย Steve Garelick, GMB Regional Organiser, said:ย “The scale of violence and aggression against transport workers is staggering. Sadly, we hear from members that it has become an expected part of the job.
โAs a union with thousands of members in the retail sector, we welcome the provision made in the bill to cover those people working in retail as a new stand-alone offence, but we believe this should be extended to cover other front-line workers in transport too. Those who abuse transport workers cannot be allowed to act with impunity any longer.โ
