A CATALOGUE of violence, verbal abuse and threats against shopworkers has been revealed by their union at the start of a week of campaigning by retail staff.

In a survey of 2,250 retail staff, 44 per cent were verbally abused and 25 per cent were threatened, while almost one in 10 said they’d been assaulted by a customer in the last year — although one-third of them didn’t report it.

Incidents included staff being threatened with knives, strangled, and having goods thrown at them — including an electric toaster and a hot chicken.