Co-op’s managing director for Scotland, Derek Furnival, wrote to members of the Scottish Parliament ahead of their support of an MSP’s bill to provide greater protection for shop workers.
Labour MSP for Edinburgh Daniel Johnson’s Protection of Workers Bill, for retail and age-restricted goods and services, has completed its third and final stage in the Scottish Parliament. If passed it will mean assaulting, threatening, abusing, obstructing or hindering a retail worker who is doing their job will become a new offence. If committed because the worker is applying an age-restriction, by asking for proof of age, a typical cause of violence, that will count as aggravation. The bill was formally lodged in 2019.
Co-op, which has 360 stores and 6,000 staff in Scotland, reports that it has been a long-standing campaigner for protection for all British retailer workers. The convenience retailer says that it has seen a 36 per cent increase in incidents of anti-social behaviour, verbal abuse and physical assaults during lockdown (January to October 2020) compared to the same period in 2019, with one in four front-line workers subjected to violence, abuse or anti-social behaviour.
The retail chain points to a 2020 survey from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) that over 400 retail workers face violence and abuse in the workplace on a daily basis, with the incidents often the result of staff challenging shoplifters, or more recently, due to them trying to implement coronavirus safety rules such as queues.
Derek Furnival said: “Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our colleagues who work tirelessly within communities to provide essential food and groceries – and never more so than over the past ten months. We strongly supports Mr Johnson’s proposed bill and believe that any law would make Co-op colleagues in Scotland feel safer and more protected as they go about their daily working lives. We hope the country’s MSP’s will do the right tomorrow by voting in support of this bill.”
Paul Gerrard, Co-op’s Campaigns and Public Affairs Director gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Scrutiny Committee in support of the Bill, last summer.
The shop workers’ union Usdaw among others has been calling for a similar specific law at Westminster. Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary said the Scottish Parliament is leading the way on protection of shop workers. He said: “We are grateful to Daniel Johnson for steering this important legislation through the Parliament.
“We have been deeply disappointed with the UK Government’s response to our campaign, offering little more than sympathy and their objecting to protection of shop workers legislation. So we are looking for MPs to support key workers across the retail sector and help turn around the UK Government’s opposition.”
Today is the deadline for the Westminster parliament Home Affairs Select Committee’s call for evidence about violence against retail; barriers to the reporting of incidents of violence or abuse and victim satisfaction with action by police and employers after an incident is reported. The MPs will explore whether a new offence of aggravated assaults against retail workers is required, and the Home Office’s spring 2019 call for evidence, which led to next to no practical change.
