Retail trade union Usdaw is to mark tomorrow’s first anniversary of the Protection of Workers Act in Scotland coming into force by urging retail staff to report incidents.
The union is holding a campaign event at the Tesco superstore in Leith and participating in a lunchtime roundtable discussion at the Scottish Parliament on 24 August.
The Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021, promoted by Daniel Johnson MSP (Labour, Edinburgh Southern) 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. The legislation is a direct result of Usdaw’s Freedom From Fear campaign working with Scottish politicians, employers and other organisations.
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. We do not yet have data on prosecutions or convictions.
Tracy Gilbert, Usdaw Regional Secretary for Scotland, said: “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.
“Violence and abuse is not an acceptable part of the job and too many shopworkers suffer all too often. We still need better coordination to ensure that retail employers, police, and the courts work together to make stores safer and give staff the support and confidence they need.”
