Shop staff must be protected

The Usdaw shopworkers’ union is highlighting the extent of abuse against shopworkers through a “Respect for Shopworkers Week” next month, part of the union’s ongoing Freedom from fear campaign.

Launched in 2002, Freedom from fear holds annual “Respect for Shopworkers” events, with this year’s theme aiming to find out the extent to which shopworkers fail to report incidents to the employer.

The union says it is worried that “shopworkers are led to believe that abuse is just part of the job”.

And it says that the week, running from 11-15 November, is designed to remind them “that abuse is not part of the job”, as well as being a call to politicians “to do more to protect shopworkers”.

Usdaw says its concerns crystallised around last year’s retail crime survey, conducted by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) employers’ organisation, in comparison with Usdaw’s own survey.

For example, while the BRC survey recorded incidents of violence per shopworker of two in 1,000 (or 0.2%), Usdaw recorded six in 100 (or 6%).

And while verbal abuse registered at 0.7% on the BRC survey, the Usdaw survey revealed a shocking 61%. The union concludes: “This is because shopworkers are telling us about incidents, but not reporting to the employer.”

The law currently gives extra protection to emergency workers who are victims of physical attack and Usdaw wants to see a Protection of Workers Bill which would extend protection to all workers.

www.usdaw.org.uk/ourcampaigns/freedomfromfear.aspx