Councillor campaign backing
Respect shop workers
An East Kilbride councillor is throwing his weight behind a campaign to show respect to shop workers in the run up to Christmas.
The leader of South Lanarkshire Council’s Labour Group joined Elaine O’Donnell, the USDAW union shop steward at Tesco St Leonards, in gathering signatures on the petition to support the ‘Freedom from Fear’ campaign during the recent Respect for Shop Workers Week.
The strapline for the campaign is ‘Keep your Cool’.
It is a campaign in the lead up to the busy Christmas shopping period asking shoppers to respect staff members.
And it comes as new figures highlight the scale of abuse that shop workers have to face and coincides with a Members Bill in the Scottish Parliament being proposed which would make violence towards shop workers a specific offence.
Councillor Fagan (East Kilbride Central North) said: “The latest figures show that across the UK six in 10 shop workers experience verbal abuse and over 230 are assaulted every day.
“It’s unacceptable that shop workers should face violence and intimidation on a daily basis.
“That’s why I’m backing union calls for the law to be strengthened and I was delighted to see so many St Leonards shoppers backing the campaign too.”
He added: “The busy Christmas shopping period can be stressful but that’s no excuse to lose your cool and take it out on retail workers.
“In every community in every part of the country, shopworkers provide a vital service and they should be able to get on with their job free from fear and abuse.”