Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “This Government has repeatedly failed to act in the face of an epidemic of retail crime and rising theft from shops. The plan put forward by Labour, which builds on the commitments set out by the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and has widespread support across the retail industry, would make a real difference on the shopfloor for our members. It is time for this Government to end their opposition, do the right thing and help our members secure the protection they deserve.
“It was deeply disappointing that there were no measures announced in the King’s Speech to tackle high levels of theft from shops and abuse of shopworkers. Labour has promised to plug the gap in the Government’s legislative programme by seeking to amend the Government’s Criminal Justice Bill to strengthen the law to protect shopworkers from violence, threats and abuse.
“A protection of shopworkers law, which already exists in Scotland, would be a great start to tackling abuse of retail staff. We also welcome Labour’s other commitments to 13,000 more neighbourhood police with guaranteed patrols in town centres, respect orders to ban repeat offenders and ending the £200 threshold for investigating and prosecuting shop theft. Labour is clearly offering the change our members 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
www.usdaw.org.uk
Labour’s motion: “That this House condemns the Government’s failure to tackle town centre crime; is concerned that shoplifting has reached record levels, with a 25% rise over the past year and 1,000 offences per day, while the detection rate for shoplifters has fallen; believes that immediate action must be taken to stop the increasing number of unacceptable incidents of violence and abuse faced by shop workers; notes that the number of neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers has been reduced by 10,000 since 2015; and calls on the Government to back Labour’s community policing guarantee, which includes scrapping the £200 limit on crown court prosecutions for shoplifting in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, creating a new specific offence of violence against shop workers, rolling out town centre policing plans and putting 13,000 extra police and community support officers back in town centres to crack down on antisocial behaviour.”
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 abused, threatened or assaulted, 59.71% said that shoplifting was the trigger and their assessment of the underlying issues was 64.07% related to a drug and/or alcohol addiction. The final results of the survey will be published in 2023.
Crime in England and Wales: Police Force Area data tables:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/policeforceareadatatables
Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/6
Criminal Justice Bill 2023: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3511
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