The coalition of leading voices in retail welcomed the Government’s 2021 changes to sentencing council guidelines, for offences committed against those providing a public service, but are looking for Ministers to go much further. Firstly, with a new statutory offence of assaulting, threatening, or abusing a retail worker, similar to the Scottish protection of workers act. Secondly, to ensure the police prioritise these offences and improve their response to incidents.
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “Today the Home Secretary appeared to be more interested in divisive racist rhetoric, totally ignoring the 25% increase in police recorded shoplifting. Our members on the frontline of retail, having to cope with regular abuse, need a Government that will deliver the freedom from fear they so desperately need. That is clearly not a Conservative government.
“The Tories repeatedly opposed a protection of workers law that would have provided a standalone offence for abusing or assaulting a shopworker. Today the Home Secretary boasted about recruiting an extra 20,000 police officers, but that barely covers the number of police officers had cut under their failed austerity programme. They are all smoke and mirrors, but they won’t con our members. Only Labour has the policies to tackle the crime that blights retail.”
Labour has given a commitment to Usdaw that they will continue their strong track record of keeping people safe in their work, building on the campaign to protect shopworkers from violence at work. This will include continuing support for, and ensuring that all retail workers are protected by, the measures outlined in the draft Assaults on Retail Workers (Offences) Bill and the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021.
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
BRC letter to the Home Secretary: https://brc.org.uk/media/683469/letter-to-the-homesecretary-retail-crime-september-2023.pdf
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. Top triggers for abuse: 34% shoplifting and armed robbery, along with 16% age-restricted sales. The full report can be found at:
www.usdaw.org.uk/FFFReport2...
Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/6
Assaults on Retail Workers (Offences) Bill: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2725
Usdaw’s Freedom from Fear Campaign seeks to prevent violence, threats and abuse against workers by engaging the public, shopworkers
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter
@UsdawUnion