The Government announced the Criminal Justice Bill in last month’s King’s Speech, it passed second reading on 28 November and is now in committee, where MPs have their first opportunity to amend the Bill. Usdaw had already expressed disappointment that there are currently no measures to address retail crime, despite a current epidemic of theft from shops, with shoplifting having increased by 25% over the last year. Usdaw, BRC and Co-op are jointly calling for a protection of shopworkers amendment, which has been backed by Labour’s frontbench but continues to be opposed by Conservative Government Ministers.
 
Usdaw last month released shocking statistics from their annual survey. Interim results from over 3,000 retail staff responses show that in the last twelve months:

• 65% have experienced verbal abuse.
• 42% were threatened by a customer.
• 5% were assaulted.
• 60% of these incidents were triggered by shoplifting. 

Addressing the committee, Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary said: “We have been surveying our members for over 20 years as part of our ‘Freedom from Fear’ campaign against violence and abuse towards retail staff. There are three million retail workers in the UK and they deserve the protection of Parliament, the police and the judicial system.
 
“We have seen an explosion of violence towards staff over the last twelve months. It nearly doubled during the pandemic and the sad part is these are people living and working in the community to serve the community. They don’t deserve this abuse.
 
“62% of the people we surveyed have been verbally abused, 56% were threatened and 5% were assaulted. So we would argue that the Bill is missing a trick here. There is an opportunity to put in the Bill a statutory offence to tackle violence against retail staff.
 
“When you hear the stories every day it’s heartbreaking. Being spat on, threatened and abused, assaulted, cars damaged and followed home at night when leaving the store. It’s just horrendous.
 
“We’ve had the historical issue of drugs and alcohol, when people are stealing and they are at their most dangerous; on top of that we have the cost of living leading to shoplifting, and now we have criminal gangs who just see retail as an easy target.
 
“The likelihood of being caught in minimal. If you are, the chances are you’ll get a slap on the wrist. So for us this is really important. If you look at the Scottish Act of 2021, there have been 6,000 additional police investigations into retail crime. So it does work when there is a specific offence.
 
“There is an opportunity here to send out as message from Parliament that this unacceptable and we are all on the side of retail workers.”
 
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 www.usdaw.org.uk
 
Criminal Justice Bill Committee - Thursday 14 December 2023:
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/0dfa9461-ac3d-45c0-b1bc-a0704c2c9388
 
Criminal Justice Bill 2023: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3511
 
Interim results of the Usdaw’s 2023 survey, based on 3,082 responses, show that: 65.44% were verbally abused, 42.74% were threatened. 17.52% shopworkers had been assaulted during their career. 4.81% had been assaulted this year. Of those who were verbally abused, 71.8% said that customer frustration with stock shortages, lack of staff or problems with self-service checkouts was the trigger. The final results of the survey will be published in 2024.
 
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
 
Crime in England and Wales: Police Force Area data tables:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/policeforceareadatatables
 
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion