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Too often retail employees are confronted with violence, threats and abuse and it is really important we stand by together and ask people to ‘keep their cool and respect shopworkers’. I voted for Labour’s


amendment to provide for stiffer sentences for offenders and I was very disappointed to see Tory and Liberal MPs combining to block it going forward. There is a real need to address the scourge of workers being assaulted and I am concerned that assailants are getting away with relatively lenient sentences. Like the thug, given a


suspended sentence for assault,


who goes out to celebrate his 'lenient' sentence and launches a vile racist attack on a woman shopworker, assaults her by pulling out chunks of her hair and walks free from court again. Or a man who grabbed a


shopworker and pushed him back against a window. He then walked off shouting that he was going to ‘get him’. In court he was told his suspended sentence for a previous offence would not be activated. And in other cases, where


the offender often isn’t charged at all and victims are left feeling that no one cares that they were assaulted. Like Val, who was


punched on the jaw when she asked a persistent shoplifter to leave, because they’d been barred from the store. Val gave a statement and the police saw the CCTV footage. The attacker was arrested but nothing more has happened. These cases do not


suggest to me that the issue of violence against shopworkers is being taken seriously. I will continue to campaign with Usdaw for a change in the law to ensure that proper punishments are given out and to give a clear message that assaulting workers who are serving the public is totally unacceptable.


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