Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at the Trade Unions Conference today that Labour would “go further” to crack down on rising retail crime and shopworker abuse.
When asked by Usdaw president Jane Jones what Labour would do to make shopfloor staff feel safe at work, Starmer described offences towards retail workers as “truly shocking”.
“It’s not acceptable. It can’t be acceptable in any circumstances,” he said.
“It is demoralising for the workforce in every single way. And that’s why I’m really pleased that we can introduce an offence to deal with it, but we have to go further than that. We can’t have a situation where shoplifters can walk in, shoplift and walk back out again and nobody can do anything about it.
“We have to take it seriously, and I’m not wanting to hear again from those that are on the front line about the appalling attacks and insults that they are subjected to. It’s everywhere across the country, it is really hard for the workforce to take. [Usdaw] has rightly championed it and, of course, we join you in that cause and we’ll do something about it, working with you and other trade unions – it’s such an important issue.”
Starmer referenced visits he made to an Iceland store in Warrington and a Morrisons in Swindon, where both teams raised the increase in abuse they were facing in relation to shoplifting and more generally as their “number one issue” at work.
It was announced in July that the government would move to make attacking a shopworker a standalone offence under the new Crime and Policing Bill.
The legislation aims to reduce the serious violence faced by shopworkers and introduce stronger measures to tackle low-level shoplifting.
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