Usdaw is calling on the Government to:
Continue to recognise the importance of the retail sector within the UK’s economic and community infrastructure.
Reform business rates, tackling the uneven playing field between online and bricks-and-mortar retailers, including exempting all stores from the higher business rates multiplier.
Support the sector with the impact of the crisis in the Middle East through taking action on energy costs for businesses and customers, protecting consumer confidence.
Develop an industrial strategy and skills plan for the retail sector, as a key employer in communities, by engaging with retail workers through their unions.
Addressing delegates, Rab Donnelly – Usdaw deputy general secretary said: “This motion is about rebuilding our economy so that it works for working people: it’s about rebuilding our infrastructure and supporting our communities, and retail must be an essential part of that. Retail is the biggest private sector employer in the country; there are nearly three million retail workers across the UK. Serving their communities, at the heart of our high streets, doing essential work every day.
“But the sector continues to face huge challenges. High energy bills, an unfair business rates system, rapidly changing technology. All of which have played their part in the closure of more than ten thousand physical stores in the last ten years. Leaving empty shops on our high streets and workers without jobs.
“We know that this Labour Government values retail work and retail workers. This Labour Government recognises that retail jobs are real jobs. We’ve seen that through their action to tackle retail crime. Creating a new specific offence of assaulting a shop worker and ending the £200 threshold for prosecuting shop theft. These are important steps forward to keep retail workers safe.
“But beyond this, the role of retail in our economy needs to be properly recognised in our industrial strategy. Retail is infrastructure, not an afterthought. This is why we will continue to campaign for business rate reform, so that bricks-and-mortar retailers are not penalised for trying to keep our high streets alive. It is why we want to see action taken on energy costs, to support businesses and customers facing growing bills.
“It’s why we need investment in skills and training for retail workers and we’re delighted that one of the calls in this motion has already been met, with the promise from the Chancellor this morning that this Labour Government will bring back the Union Learning Fund, after the funding was so shamefully taken away, in a blatant anti-union attack by the Tories. This Labour Government is going to put that right. Now they must go further to create a real industrial strategy for retail.”
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 with around 370,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also represents many workers in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
For Usdaw press releases visit: www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Bluesky @usdawunion.bsky.social and Twitter/X @UsdawUnion