The union launched their policing pledge ahead of PCC elections on Thursday 2 May and secured the support of many Labour candidates, demonstrating their support for shopworkers who are suffering in the midst of a retail crime epidemic.
Usdaw’s policing pledge calls on elected PCCs to:
- Support Labour’s Community Policing Guarantee, including the introduction of a specific offence to protect retail workers.
- Work with local businesses, retail workers and their representatives to make our town centres and high streets safer.
- Ensure that the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Retail Crime Action Plan is fully implemented.
- Ensure that victims of retail crime, including workers, are supported.
- Work to tackle shoplifting and business crime and make crime reporting simpler.
Usdaw members are out campaigning this weekend with Labour PCC candidates who have signed the pledge, when they’ll be highlighting the scale of the of problem. The latest annual survey of over 5,000 shopworkers shows that during 2023:
- 7 out of 10 had been verbally abused.
- 46% were threatened.
- 18% were physically assaulted.
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “These staggering levels of abuse, threats and violence are significantly above pre-pandemic levels. The situation is in danger of becoming normalised in shops up and down the country. The jump in incidents of shopworkers being physically assaulted, up from 8% to 18% in a year, is of particular concern. Our survey is in line with evidence from the British Retail Consortium, the Retail Trust and major retailers such as the Co-op and Tesco; demonstrating the scale of the retail crime crisis the UK is facing.
“Usdaw welcomes the support of Labour’s PCC candidates and looks forward to these policies being delivered when they are elected. It is important that police forces respond to all retail crime incidents and have the resources to do that. We need greater coordination between the police and retailers, especially targeting repeat and prolific offenders. We are alarmed that the Co-op found, through a freedom of information request, that across the country 71% of serious retail crimes are currently not responded to by the police. This even includes instances where offenders are detained and then have to be released because the police have not shown up. For retail crime to be prioritised by police forces, it is critical that on Thursday 2 May people vote for Labour Police Crime Commissioner candidates.
"Alongside leading retail industry figures, Usdaw continues to call for new legislation to make it a specific offence to abuse or assault a retail worker. We won that campaign in Scotland, which has now led to over 500 convictions. Shopworkers in across the whole of the UK deserve the same legal backup as their colleagues in Scotland. Conservative MPs have repeatedly stopped this measure being passed in parliament and only by electing a Labour Government can we secure the protection our members deserve.”
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is one of the fastest growing unions in the TUC and 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 community policing guarantee: https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/starmer-launches-community-policing-guarantee-to-get-more-police-in-your-town-fighting-antisocial-behaviour-taking-back-our-streets
National Police Chiefs' Council's Retail Crime Action Plan: https://nbcc.police.uk/imges/2023/News%202023/Retail%20Crime%20Action%20Plan%20-%20October%202023.pdf
Usdaw's Freedon from FearCampaign: https://www.usdaw.org.uk/Campaigns/Freedom-From-Fear
Results of Usdaw's 2023 Survey: https://www.usdaw.org.uk/FFFReport2023
Criminal gangs with a 'freedom to loot' drive spiralling store crime - out of control levels of crime could deprive communities of their local stores, Co-op warns: https://www.co-operative.coop/media/news-releases/criminal-gangs-with-a-freedom-to-loot-drive-spiralling-store-crime-out-of
Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/6
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter
@UsdawUnion