Abuse on shop workers on the rise despite easing of restrictions

USDAW are reporting staff in East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire are receiving ‘double the amount of abuse’

Shopworker
Author: Rebecca QuarmbyPublished 25th Aug 2021
Last updated 25th Aug 2021

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 this.

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 Gray 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.”