Having visited a major supermarket in his constituency, Daniel Zeichner MP (Labour, Cambridge) asked: “What struck me most was the experience of shopworkers on the frontline. They told me they expect to suffer a violent assault every single day they go to work. So, what is this out of touch Prime Minister doing to make sure people can be safe in their workplace?”
 
Prime Minister’s response: “Everyone deserves to be safe in their workplace and that’s why we’re making sure that through our sentencing act we have appropriate sentencing in place for that and more generally making sure there are police officers and community support officers across the country to help combat crime.”
 
Paddy Lillis - Usdaw general Secretary says: “We thank Daniel Zeichner for raising the growing issue of violence against shopworkers, but disappointed with the Prime Minister’s response that amounted to little more than warm words. The fact is that abuse of shopworkers has increased significantly since 2016 and was exceptionally high during the pandemic. Abuse should never be a part of the job and our members need more Government action to help keep them safe at work.
 
“An extensive campaign by Usdaw and retailers successfully secured an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act with the aim to better protect people working in retail. However, that can only make a difference when an offender is sentenced, but the problem is that far too many do not even get to court. Also, the Home Office currently does not track the use of this measure, making it impossible to understand if the change is having an impact.
 
“The Government has consistently refused to follow the Scottish lead by creating a specific offence of assaulting a shopworker, so they are falling short of doing what is needed. The claim of extra police is disingenuous because recent increases in officers are not even covering the numbers lost under Tory austerity cuts. Certainly, the experience of our members is that local police are overstretched and struggling to respond to incidents of retail crime.
 
“What we would have liked to have heard from the Prime Minister is a commitment to additional legislation to protect shopworkers, along with 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 over 350,000 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 www.usdaw.org.uk
 
Final results of the Usdaw 2022 survey, based on 7,752 responses, show that (last year’s results in brackets): 74.26% (89%) were verbally abused, 49.25% (63%) were threatened. 7.92% (12%) had been assaulted. 40.88% said violence, threats and abuse caused them anxiety at work and 29.97% are now considering changing job. Full report: www.usdaw.org.uk/FFFReport2022
 
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
 
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion