Shopworkers continue to lack confidence in reporting assaults despite new law

The Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021, promoted by Edinburgh Southern Labour MSP Daniel Johnson MSP, came into force on 24 August 2021.

It provides a new specific offence for assaulting, threatening or abusing a shopworker and a harsher sentence if they were enforcing a statutory age restriction, resulting in a fine with penalties escalating to a prison sentence.

Police Scotland reported that by the end of March this year 1,924 crimes have been recorded under the Act. Most of these (1,130) were crimes of threatening or abusive behaviour of a retail worker. A further 786 involved common assault of a retail worker, there have also been eight serious assaults.

There is not yet any published data on prosecutions or convictions under the Act.

Tracy Gilbert, regional secretary for Scotland at retail union Usdaw, said: “Scottish shopworkers deserve far more respect than they receive. Our surveying shows that nine in 10 are suffering abuse from customers, two-thirds were threatened and 12 per cent assaulted. So it is extremely worrying that nearly two-thirds are not confident that reporting these issues will make any difference.

“The ground-breaking protection of workers legislation that came into force in Scotland last year was an important step forward, but we still need to encourage incident reporting.

“Usdaw has been working with employers to make it easier for staff to report attacks and abuse, highlighting the legislation to improve confidence, backed up with training, and promoting the importance of reporting all incidents.”

Ms Gilbert added: “Violence and abuse is not an acceptable part of the job and too many shopworkers suffer all too often. We still need better co-ordination to ensure that retail employers, police and the courts work together to make stores safer and give staff the support and confidence they need.”