PEOPLE who assault retail staff should face harsher penalties, shopworkers’ union Usdaw urged the government today as it launched a House of Commons petition.

Assaults and abuse of retail workers has doubled during the coronavirus outbreak in Britain, the union’s survey found.

Last year, shopworkers were verbally abused, threatened or assaulted by customers every fortnight on average. But now that average has doubled to every week during the pandemic.

Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis described the increase in abuse at a time of a health emergency as a “national disgrace.”

He said: “Shopworkers are on the frontline of feeding the country, providing an essential service in very difficult circumstances, working long hours in busy stores, facing abuse from customers and of course concerned they may become infected with Covid-19.

“The safety of our members is absolutely paramount, but they tell us that some of the shopping public are resisting safety measures in stores and can become abusive when asked to queue, maintain social distancing or reminded to wear a face mask.”

Usdaw carried out a survey of retail workers across Britain between March 14 and April 17 and released some of feedback it received on the experiences working in retail during the Covid-19 outbreak.

One shop worker wrote: “I had never cried in work until the first week of the lockdown. I received constant abuse from nearly every customer during one shift when the rules were changed so that we couldn’t accept returns.

“I finally broke when one woman refused to leave the store and insulted me and berated me for not doing the return.

“The following day a man was very aggressive towards me for the same reason and I could visibly see him twitching in a way that suggested he was about to become violent.”

Another said: “The worst abuse I have experienced has occurred while working on the till, some customers have been extremely abusive when they have been asked to pay by card instead of cash.”

Nearly 5,000 shopworkers responded to the survey, with just over 62 per cent saying that they had been verbally abused in that period, 29 per cent said they were threatened, and 4 per cent said they were assaulted.

Mr Lillis called on the government to enact new legislation specifically targeting perpetrators who abuse retail workers so that it was “widely recognised and understood by the public, police, CPS, the judiciary and most importantly criminals.”

The petition can be found here: http://mstar.link/usdawpetition.