The Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021, promoted by Daniel Johnson MSP (Labour, Edinburgh Southern) came into force on 24 August 2021. It provides a new specific offence for assaulting, threatening or abusing a shopworker and a harsher sentence if they were enforcing a statutory age restriction, resulting in a fine with penalties escalating to a prison sentence. The legislation is a direct result of Usdaw’s Freedom From Fear campaign working with Scottish politicians, employers and other organisations.
 
Police Scotland reported that by the end of March this year 1,924 crimes have been recorded under the Act. Most of these (1,130) were crimes of threatening or abusive behaviour of a retail worker. A further 786 involved common assault of a retail worker, there have also been eight serious assaults. We do not yet have data on prosecutions or convictions.
 
Tracy Gilbert – Usdaw Regional Secretary for Scotland says: “Scottish shopworkers deserve far more respect than they receive. Our surveying shows that 9 in 10 are suffering abuse from customers, two-thirds were threatened and 12% assaulted. So it is extremely worrying that nearly two-thirds are not confident that reporting these issues will make any difference.
           
“The ground-breaking protection of workers legislation that came into force in Scotland last year was an important step forward, but we still need to encourage incident reporting. Usdaw has been working with employers to make it easier for staff to report attacks and abuse, highlighting the legislation to improve confidence, backed up with training, and promoting the importance of reporting all incidents.
 
“Violence and abuse is not an acceptable part of the job and too many shopworkers suffer all too often. We still need better co-ordination to ensure that retail employers, police and the courts work together to make stores safer and give staff the support and confidence they need.”
 
Notes for editors:
 
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades.
 
Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/6
 
Usdaw’s Freedom from Fear Campaign seeks to prevent violence, threats and abuse against workers by engaging the public, shopworkers and the Government. www.usdaw.org.uk/Campaigns/Freedom-From-Fear
 
Usdaw annual survey of nearly 3,500 UK retail staff, which show that in the last twelve months: 90% have experienced verbal abuse, 64% were threatened by a customer, 12% were assaulted and 61% said they were not confident that reporting abuse, threats and violence will make a difference. Full results: www.usdaw.org.uk/FFFsurvey2021

For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion