IT’S disturbing that the record levels of violence and abuse that shopworkers experienced in the first year of the pandemic increased even further in the second year.

Ninety per cent of the nearly 3,500 retail workers who responded to our annual survey reported abuse in the last year, up from 88 per cent; 64 per cent were threatened, up from 60 per cent, and most disturbing of all 12 per cent were assaulted, up from 9 per cent.

Violence and abuse is not an acceptable part of the job and it is truly horrific that shopworkers are having to face it on a daily basis.

Although the situation is bleak, there are some early signs that Usdaw’s work with the retail employers may be starting to make a difference.

The Protection of Workers Act came into force in Scotland in August 2021. By the end of the year nearly 300 cases were under investigation by the Scottish Police.

While we still do not have similar laws for England, Wales or Northern Ireland, the government has made violence against workers a statutory aggravating factor for sentencing.

There are also encouraging pilot projects with some police forces to improve reporting of incidents to the police and to use the evidence to deal with prolific offenders.

Our survey also shows an encouraging increase in reporting of incidents to employers.

There has been an increased effort by employers to make people aware that abuse will not be tolerated through, for example, the #ShopKind campaign and it appears that some managers are being more robust in support of their workers.

However, faced with such appallingly high levels of violence and abuse, and with shopworkers’ almost complete lack of confidence in the ability of the system to give them the protection they need, much more needs to be done.

The government must provide the co-ordination needed to turn pilot projects into common practice and to ensure that retail employers, police and the courts work together to make shops safe places for our members to work and for customers to shop.

Usdaw launched its Freedom From Fear campaign nearly 20 years ago in response to members’ concerns about increasing levels of violence and abuse.

Since then Usdaw has worked with the public, retail employers, the police and with government to protect shopworkers.

For the last 15 years Usdaw has annually surveyed thousands of shopworkers to gather first-hand accounts on the extent of violence, threats and abuse against shop staff.

There are a couple of consistent themes that stand out from previous surveys.

The call for banning of offenders continues to grow over recent years and the demand for more security guards is also increasingly common.

This year we asked a specific question about the messaging that employers use to make the public aware that abuse is not acceptable — for example, signage on the doors, signage at the point of sale, messages over the public address system.

We also asked specifically about the Home Office funded #ShopKind campaign which was launched in April 2021 and about Usdaw’s Freedom From Fear campaign.

Overall the results were encouraging. Just under a third said that they were unaware of any signage or messages in their workplace.

However, among the ones who responded that signage was in use, a significant number identified #ShopKind materials by name and were also using Usdaw Freedom From Fear materials to promote the message.

We asked respondents to give a score on a scale from one to 10 to indicate how confident they were that reporting violence and abuse will make a difference.

Unfortunately the response was overwhelmingly negative with 61 per cent scoring four or less and the main response being one — not at all confident.

It is disturbing to see that levels of abuse and violence remain at the highest levels since our face-to-face surveying commenced and that levels of physical violence, in particular, are continuing to increase.

It is also a serious matter of concern that, despite the continuing extra pressures of the coronavirus pandemic, the more traditional triggers of violence and abuse, shop theft and age-restricted products, are re-establishing themselves as major triggers for violence.

Despite the best efforts of all involved, shopworkers still lack confidence that their employers and the police will provide then with the protection and support that they need.

Until there is evidence that shopworkers do feel safe and respected for the essential service they provide, Usdaw will continue its campaigning on this issue and will continue monitoring the levels of abuse our members suffer, examining the effectiveness of the new legislation and encouraging our members to report the incidents they experience.

Paddy Lillis is general secretary of Usdaw.