John Hannett: Abuse and violence are never part of the job

Usdaw is the union that represents shopworkers and our retail crime annual survey shows that every minute of every day another shopworker is verbally abused, threatened or physically attacked. We are asking customers to keep their cool and show respect for shopworkers.

During this week Usdaw reps and members will be joined by Labour politicians campaigning for respect for shopworkers as part of the union’s Freedom from Fear Campaign, 
which has been running for the last 10 years.

The interim results of a survey of shopworkers shows, from the first 1,844 responses, that 49 per cent were victims of verbal abuse in the past year; 35 per cent were threatened and four per cent subjected to a violent assault.

While this represents a slight decrease from last year, it still shows unacceptably high levels of attacks. Four per cent of shopworkers assaulted represents around 120,000 violent attacks against retail staff across the UK.

Despite recent good news of the overall crime rate coming down, the latest crime statistics reveal that shoplifting increased slightly, showing that the Government must not be complacent about the safety of retail staff.

Often, in the course of their duties, shopworkers are expected to enforce the law, whether that is preventing under-age purchases or detaining shoplifters until the police arrive. They can be put in real danger. So it is always a real concern to our members when incidents of shoplifting are on the increase, because too often that can result in the shopworker being assaulted by the thief.

Usdaw is also campaigning for a change in the law to provide more severe punishments for those who assault workers serving the public. This would not just apply to shopworkers, but all public-facing workers, including NHS staff, transport workers, bar workers and many others. We are concerned by some of the lenient sentences given to criminals guilty of some pretty awful attacks:

Like the thug, given a suspended sentence for assault, who goes out to celebrate his “lenient” sentence and launches a vile racist attack on a woman shopworker, assaults her in front of her children by pulling out chunks of her hair and walks free from court again.

Or a man who grabbed a shopworker and pushed him back against a window. He then walked off, shouting that he was going to “get him”. In court, he was told his suspended sentence for a previous offence would not be activated.

And in other cases, where the offender often isn’t charged at all and victims are left feeling that no one cares that they were assaulted. Like Val, who was punched on the jaw when she asked a persistent shoplifter to leave, because they’d been barred from the store. Val gave a statement and the police saw the CCTV footage. The attacker was arrested but nothing more has happened.

These cases do not suggest to me that the issue of violence against shopworkers is being taken seriously. Usdaw will continue to campaign for a change in the law to ensure that proper punishments are given out and to give a clear message that assaulting workers who are serving the public is totally unacceptable.

Recently the Government blocked a Labour amendment to the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, which would have introduced a specific offence of assaulting a worker serving the public.

The amendment would have 
extended existing protections for police officers and Scottish emergency service workers to all workers serving the public, by making the assault of a worker serving the public an offence in its own right.

At the moment, under sentencing guidelines, assaulting a worker is an aggravating factor, but there are concerns this is not being applied when decisions are made about prosecutions and sentencing.

We were disappointed that this proposal was rejected by the Government in the House of Commons, but we are hopeful that it will be backed by the House of Lords and the Government will be forced to think again. Finally, a message to all those who work in retail.

Our surveying reveals that one in six shopworkers who have been physically assaulted did not report the incident to their employer or the police.

We are shocked that so many are suffering in silence and I would urge you to report any incidents, to give us and your employer the chance to sort the problem.

Abuse and physical attacks are not part of any shopworker’s job.

• John Hannett is general secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.