𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Abuse and threats against retail workers continues to grow, with violent incidents more than doubling since the pandemic, according to research.

The shopworkers’ union Usdaw said the findings of a survey of almost 9,000 retail staff were “shocking”.

Abuse, threats and assaults remain higher than pre-Covid levels in 2019, said the union.

Four in five respondents said they had been verbally abused in the past year, more than half were threatened and one in 10 assaulted.

Joanne Thomas, Usdaw’s general secretary, said: “No-one should feel afraid to go to work, but our evidence shows that nearly four in five of our members working in retail are being abused, threatened and assaulted for simply doing their job and serving the community.

“They provide an essential service and deserve our respect and the protection of the law. The two top issues that trigger incidents are customer frustration and theft from shops.

“Particularly worrying is the rise of customer frustration as a trigger of incidents. Self-service checkouts, lack of stock on the shelves and low staffing levels have all been identified as issues by our members that can lead to customers taking out their frustrations with staff.

“We have long campaigned with the general public asking them to ‘keep their cool’ and respect retail workers.

“We will be taking our survey findings to retail employers as we continue to make the case for safe staffing levels and reminding them that retail workers are the face of the business and they should be valued, supported and treated with decency.”