MSP Jackie Baillie has backed shopworkers at the start of trade union Usdaw’s Respect for Shopworkers Week.
The latest data, collated by retail trade union Usdaw, shows that almost two thirds of retail staff have experienced verbal abuse, with 42% threatened by a customer and 5% being assaulted.
Some 60% of these incidents were triggered by shoplifting.
The annual Respect for Shopworkers Week runs until Sunday, with Usdaw members raising awareness of the union’s year-round Freedom from Fear Campaign and talking to the public to promote a message of ‘respect for shopworkers’.
The Dumbarton constituency MSP said: “It is unacceptable that shopworkers go to work in fear of their own safety.
“These statistics are stark as are the testimonies that go with them outlining how threatened shopworkers really feel and the real-life situations they have been faced with.
“I fully back Usdaw’s campaign to make the public aware of the situations retail staff face every day and to increase respect for our shopworkers.
“The situation cannot carry on like this and, while I welcome the changes in the law introduced by my Labour colleague Daniel Johnson MSP, there needs to be definitive action to prevent these crimes as well as prosecute them.”
Interim results of the Usdaw’s 2023 survey, based on 3,082 responses, show that: 65.44% were verbally abused, 42.74% were threatened.
Further, 17.52% shopworkers had been assaulted during their career and 4.81% had been assaulted this year.
Of those who were abused, threatened or assaulted, 59.71% said that shoplifting was the trigger and their assessment of the underlying issues was 64.07% related to a drug and/or alcohol addiction.
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