VIOLENCE at work is “out of control” said MPs as they backed union calls for new laws against assaulting public-sector workers today.

The all-party parliamentary group on Occupational Safety and Health warned abuse, threats and assaults are now a routine part of working life for transport, retail, prisons and education staff.

Its chairman Ian Lavery MP said: “Workers are being punched, spat at and threatened simply for doing their jobs, and too often nothing happens. 

“This is a crisis, and the government is not doing enough to stop it.”

The group made a series of recommendations including a rethink on the ban on prison officers’ right to strike in a report today. 

Current approaches are failing workers, leaving them to manage violence themselves instead of preventing it, said the parliamentarians. 

Their report urged ministers to introduce legal protection for all public-facing workers, end unsafe lone working and review sectoral minimum staffing levels.

It also called for more funding for policing and health and safety enforcement and urgent action on overcrowded prisons and underfunded schools.

It drew on evidence from trade unions including RMT, Unite, Usdaw, NASUWT and the Prison Officers’ Association (POA). 

In January, the group heard from a bus driver who was held at gunpoint and a POA representative speaking on the rising number of attacks on prison staff leaving workers hospitalised on a daily basis.

Usdaw general secretary Joanne Thomas said: “No-one should feel afraid to go to work, but Usdaw’s evidence shows that nearly four in five of our members working in retail are being abused, threatened and assaulted for simply doing their job and serving the community. 

“They provide an essential service and deserve our respect and the protection of the law.”

RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said that more needs to be done to tackle the rise in assaults against transport workers.

“Being abused, threatened or assaulted at work has become far too common, and we will never accept that it is ever part of the job,” he said.

The RMT’s demands include “safe staffing levels, an end to lone working, proper funding for British Transport Police and an increased presence of officers, legislation to make it a specific offence to assault a transport worker and an end to outsourcing of security and enforcement staff.”