Australian retailers have launched a new campaign against what they have dubbed a customer abuse epidemic.
The National Retailers Association (NRA) has backed a campaign calling out customer abuse of retail workers launched by the nation’s retail union the SDA.
The ‘No One Deserves a Serve’ campaign was launched nationwide in late 2017 after shocking research from the union involving 6,000 retail and fast food workers found that over 85% of them had experienced abuse from customers at work.
The NRA this week openly announced its support of the campaign, on Tuesday saying that the peak’s CEO Dominique Lamb will be meeting with the SDA at its National Customer Abuse & Violence Industry Roundtable today.
Ms Lamb said the NRA was intent on tackling any form of abuse or violence towards retail workers.
“Any abuse whether verbal or physical towards retail or fast food workers is simply unacceptable,” Mrs Lamb said.
“People working in retail are just doing their job and shouldn’t be abused for something that is out of their control.”
The SDA’s first roundtable was hosted in March last year and saw substantial discussions around the prevalence of customer abuse of staff.
Their ‘Don’t Bag Retail Staff’ campaign was launched at this roundtable.
“I believe today’s roundtable will be just as successful as last years, if not more, and will assist in tackling this epidemic,” Mrs Lamb said.
The news comes just months after KFC and the Reject Shop launched a trial aimed at monitoring anti-social behaviour against retail workers.