Wednesday 15 October 2008

Keep Your Cool At Christmas

I was down in the House of Commons today, organising a campaign day for Usdaw as part of our Freedom from Fear Campaign.

The campaign seeks to prevent violence threats and abuse against shopworkers and make our shops and shopping areas safer for customers and staff.

This year's campaign is focussed on the pre-Christmas rush in shops and asking customers that, although we know they are stressed, to stay cool and help the shopworkers help them with the shopping.

At the Parliamentary event we asked MPs to match the behaviour to the customer and illustrated different customers with caricatures, which you can see in the background. The point is that it isn't just the hoodies that cause problems and shopworkers never know which customer is going to verbally abuse the.

We also released figures from a new survey showing that the number of incidents of verbal abuse has reduced, but still over half of shopworkers say they have been abused in the last twelve months. We feel that our campaigning is making a difference to the culture, but there is still a long way to go.

Pictured: David with Usdaw General Secretary John Hannett, Deputy General Secretary Paddy Lillis and shopworkers.

Please click here for more information on Usdaw’s campaigning.

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