News

"Keep your cool at Christmas" is the message that General Secretary John Hannett is trying to get across during this campaign which will end on the 6th November. The "Respect for Shopworkers Week" is part of the overall campaign "Freedom from fear" which was launched in 2002 and which already has lead to a number of initiaves locally bringing down reported numbers of incidents.



However, a recent survey done by Usdaw indicated that 1 in 10 shopworkers has been physically attacked whilst at work and as many as 29% has experienced verbal abuse in the last month and one in three shopworkers (32%) has been threatened in the last year.



As much as appealing to the public to behave better while doing the Christmas shopping the campaing also is directed towards Government in order to have introduced stronger measures against those who perpetrate this unacceptable behaviour, but it is also directed towards employers who needs to take all reasonable steps to increase the security for the employees.



Usdaw is one of Britain's largest trade unions with about 382.000 members with commerce being the largest sector.



Read more about the "Respect for Shopworkers Week" and the "Freedom from Fear" campaign at:

www.usdaw.org.uk.





Related to this: The social partners of the European Social Dialogue for Commerce launched on 21st October a toolkit on how to makes shops safer and it points out what issues specifically that needs to be adressed.

Find out more on: http://www.eurocommerce.be/content.aspx?PageId=41605&lang=EN