Abuse on shop workers on the rise despite easing of restrictions
USDAW are reporting staff in Northern Lincolnshire are receiving ‘double the amount of abuse’
The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) are undergoing a week of action to tackle the abuse shop workers get.
It comes as Scotland has enforced a new law which protects staff working in shops. The campaign group are now calling for our government to get on board with it.
Janet Haggis is a representative of USDAW and works in a shop in Cleethorpes, she said:
“We want our government to do this for England Wales and Northern Ireland and bring it into line with what Scotland have done to protect stop workers through a law that will see sentencing being the highest conviction.
“It's such a grey area now that some people are wearing a mask but people that wear the mask are finding that they're getting abuse from people that aren't wearing masks – the people that get it in the neck is the shop workers because since the pandemic violence and abuse has doubled and from a survey that we did, 14% of our members have been actually assaulted 92% have been abused. My worry is staff are beginning to accept it.”