Red Card

USDAW members came to the National Assembly last week, on national Respect for Shopworkers Day. The shop workers union is highlighting a new survey which found a staggering 95% of retail staff have been verbally abused by customers.

Usdaw members report that serious instances of graphic swearing, sexist comments, homophobic abuse and racist taunts from out of control shoppers are rising sharply.

I was shocked to read Usdaw’s research, which found that at least one million shopworkers are verbally abused every working day. Most shoppers would never think of physically assaulting a shopworker, but many seem to think it is alright to shout, scream and hurl abuse into the faces of retail staff. The message is simple. Staff are not verbal punchbags for shoppers to take out their frustrations on. They are human beings with feelings and have a right to work in a non-threatening environment. Shoppers need to remember shopworkers are someone’s mother, father, brother or sister and you wouldn’t abuse your own relatives like this.

The red card is a final reminder to shoppers that they if they feel themselves losing control in a shop to take a step back and understand that no situation in a shop, no matter how stressful, gives you the right to verbally abuse a retail workers.

The Usdaw United Against Abuse teams across the UK were handing out red cards reminding shoppers that verbally abuse is a form of intimidation suffered by millions of retail workers every year.