Retail Trust Campaign: Staff Attacked on Shift, Humiliated Online
More than half of UK store workers face violence, threats or verbal abuse every week, the Retail Trust says as it launches Let's Respect Retail. Two staff describe a wine bottle attack and a video posted to Facebook, and call for tougher legal protection.
More than half of UK store workers now face violence, threats or verbal abuse every week, according to the Retail Trust, a charity that has launched its Let's Respect Retail campaign. Two frontline staff who were attacked on shift and humiliated online have described the toll to support it.
The campaign calls on ministers to fast-track tougher legal protections before the Christmas shopping rush. The hostility is pushing almost half of the UK's three million retail workers to consider leaving the industry for good, the charity says.
Filmed and ridiculed on Facebook
Charles Davies, 23, works at a gardening centre in Shropshire. An ordinary shift turned violent when a shopper demanding a refund pushed him and shouted threats.
"He pulled out his phone, started recording me, and got really in my face, quite aggressive, a bit brutish," said Davies, a representative of the retail union Usdaw. "It was a very harrowing experience."
He hoped the confrontation ended when the customer left. Days later, the video appeared on a local community Facebook page, and a flood of comments mocked his competence.
"When the social media post came out, I was mortified," Davies said. People then came into the store saying he was the man from Facebook. He said a degree of feeling unsafe still lingers.
Davies wants a specific ban on filming staff on commercial premises. "When you have legislation in place that says, 'You can't do this,' that's what functionally acts as a deterrent," he said.
Stitches after confronting a shoplifter
Benedict Selvaratnam, 43, runs two convenience stores in Croydon, south London. He needed hospital stitches to the back of his head after trying to take a stolen wine bottle from a shoplifter.
"I tried to retrieve a stolen wine bottle from a shoplifter and he started attacking me and hitting me with it," he said. The father of three is a member of the Association of Convenience Stores, which has joined the Retail Trust's campaign.
He has watched hostility climb. "When we opened our town centre store 10 years ago, there were about two to three instances of abuse per week. Now it's two to three every day," Selvaratnam said.
He described young female colleagues being spat on and customers threatening to wait outside after shifts end. "It's very disheartening coming to work and not knowing what kind of day it's going to be," he said.
Industry leaders are also urging the public to "bring respect back to shopping", and warn that customer abuse has become an intolerable daily reality for staff.
