thehatfoxTesco workers offered body cameras as violent attacks against employees soar
SbisasCostlyTurnoverUsed to work in a pretty sizable Sainsbury’s up until last year. I never dealt with physical abuse from a customer, but I did hear about a fair bit of it, especially from the female members of staff.
Customers would come in and start being incredibly inappropriate to them. You’d hear that one customer had patted them on the bottom, or grabbed their hand. One customer would routinely come in and start trying to kiss my partner’s hand (we worked together). You report this behaviour to management and at best it’s laughed off.
Don’t even get me started on the behaviour some customers think they’re entitled to push on staff who are unfortunate enough to have to do reductions in the evening; grabbing, pushing, shouting, you name it, it’s done. Management are adamant it has to be done on the shop floor though, why? You tell me.
Ultimately what I’m trying to say is that a lot of these sort of things might be less prominent if management came out and backed their colleagues when a customer was showing signs of being a t*at. Fitting them with cameras makes it look like another profit protection measure.
LastSprinklesFitting them with cameras makes it look like another profit protection measure.
I was nodding along till here. Wouldn’t fitting employees with body cameras making it easier to prosecute the criminals? Lack of evidence is probably the issue in most cases.
Because in my experience (15 years of supermarket work) I’ve never seen anything get treated as importantly as they treat profit protection.
mannycalaveraSorry, I’m being dense this Sunday. How does this protect profit? Surely fitting employees with body cams eats into your profit as it is a cost?
Customers are significantly less likely to try and pocket something if there’s a risk of them being called up on it, or actually caught on camera.
Even if they never actually catch anyone, the fact that people can see the cameras would likely serve as a deterrent.
Is that not a good thing? Less chance of criminal activity, less chance of getting stabbed whilst stacking shelves?
Absolutely. I just find it a bit…much when they try to label this as a means to protect staff when everything they do signals that isn’t their main motive.
Gotcha. I understand your point of view, I just think maybe they can do both? Protect their liability against being sued for safety on the workplace and at the same time reduce the risk of their employees getting hurt.
Yeah that’s all we ask. I understand why they want to ensure products aren’t being stolen, but I also feel like they could be doing significantly more to ensure colleagues aren’t being intimidated and assaulted.
Of course, the best way for staff to feel safer is if customers stopped being absolutely dickheads, but we seem to be going on the wrong way on that front.
Oh man, I can imagine. I don’t understand what goes through some people’s heads.
stevecroxWhen I workedin Woolworths, the elderly were 99% of verbal/physical absuse, sexual haressment and theft.
I watched and stopped a pensioner load up his jacket with 1kg bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk under a CCTV camera and walked him to security where he was let go.
Woolworths would never prosecute a pensioner because they feared the headlines.
We had a bit where Headquarters insisted expensive electronics had to be on the floor, 3 old people would distract floor staff and then 2-3 elderly would walk through the store and pick stuff up on route.
The 10 guys who worked there were all briefed when a specific announcement happened on the PA we had to immediately go to the exits and reciept check everyone with big electronics. Security knew exactly who they were but prosecute .. pffft
I’ve seen the mad fight for the reduced products in a Tesco once. People are mental about it, to save a few bob at best.
My partner does the reductions on a Friday evening and there’s a guy who basically walks around the shop for two hours in anticipation. My dude…
After 1900 our Tesco local has their doors locked and you have to be let in. Why are people such pricks. I work on the railway and someone threatened to stab me over a £4 ticket the other day. I just fucking hate people.
Must be a pretty old Tesco to be still going after 123 years!
Crime goes up when desperation levels go up. People are desperate. Agreed, it’s wrong that it puts you in danger, but you are the face of the corporation they are angry at. It’s misdirected anger.
I hope you give your employers an earful for putting you in that vulnerable position.
FatLegTedThey’d be told to look for work elsewhere.
But in a less polite manner.
Well if your employer is putting you in danger, that might be a good outcome. You probably have a good employment law case.
ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝I went to Asda not long after lockdown had lifted the first time and said something standard to the lady on the checkout like “long day?” and she looked at me with hollow eyes and told me that when she’d told a woman they’d run out of toilet roll the customer spat in her face. Some people are the worst.
Sometimes you can tell the checkout asst is just fucking done having the same basic conversation 100x and wants to scan silently, but I always try and inject a bit of happiness into their day if they’ve not fallen mute. Working any public-facing retail job is bloody awful… speaking from personal experience, I used to temp at Toys R Us at christmas and let me tell you, there’s no more entitled creature than a parent at christmas who has left it too late to get this years most popular toy.
BUT *MYYYYY *CHIIIIIILD
NumbersCanBeFunA camera is a deterrent at best. If someone is going to shank you to death, they will do it with the cameras on or off.
If I was given this as a safety feature I would quit and find a new place to work. Fuck that shit.
If someone is already assaulting a member of staff, what stops them just stealing the camera?
Call me cynical, but it sounds like a disguise for a profit protection thing.
You’re not even allowed to carry OC spray in the UK, so I’m guessing it’s for “identification” of the probably-masked attacker after he has his way with the employee.
The video in that article is wild, what the actual fuck
Welp 😥.
Fucking hell I’d be petrified. That mad lad can just have the chocolate hobnobs, they aren’t worth it…
“Mr Murphy write in the Mail on Sunday that a law should be introduced to make abuse or violence towards retail workers an offence in its own right across the UK”
Is brandishing a knife at someone not already an offense?
Surely the problem is a shameful lack of policing and more people falling into poverty following 15 years of tory rule. how is creating an offense out of something that is already an offense going to change anything?
Seriously. Emulating the USA’s criminal “policies” is stupid, and I live here. Next thing he’s going to suggest all your cops have guns, and then suddenly you’ll have black market firearms everywhere.
FlaxEvery police officer in Northern Ireland has firearms and there’s no issue
Or Tesco can cough up the dough for security guards like they used to, before Tesco made them “redundant” and replaced them with apparently ineffective technology as others have mentioned.
If you think that’s even slightly likely to be suggested, you don’t know UK society at all. There’s no gun culture or people arguing for them to be brought back to society at all here.
Yup. Please chill and enjoy being better than the US in ways that you failed to appreciate when you brexited.
If, as a giant corporate entity, your employees are getting wide spread abuse, you need to look at your company and assess why so much anger exists. The problem is likely rooted in Tesco treating it’s customers like shit whilst they are living through an economic crisis.
Yes, somebody who snaps and draws a weapon is ultimately in the wrong, but with the numbers of customers Tesco has there was always a good chance somebody would snap.
When you say “treating their customers like shit”, how do you mean? I get that the rapidly raising prices for a weekly shop are going to annoy people, especially if their income isn’t raising at the same rate, but that’s happening across the board and the average Tesco worker has no control over inflation. Maybe the queues may be long some times of day but thats a decision you make as to when to go shopping.
I mean, Tesco and others are being scrutinized for price increases beyond those justified by increased costs of of manufacturing. They harvest their customer’s data, or make them pay more. They discontinue larger “bulk” size of goods, forcing people to buy smaller more expensive sizes.
I’ve now found that the difference between a Tesco shop and a Waitrose shop (the other one I have locally) has become much smaller, and I get higher quality produce. Asda, Lidl and Aldi are much more worth the trip now.
In my opinion Tesco have used Inflation as an excuse to go to town on price rises.
MexNo need for new laws here, the current laws should just be actaully enforced.
Guy IngonitoHonestly, how long until all of us are wearing body cameras so we have accurate evidence of what is happening?
Ik someone who works in Sainsbury’s and she wears a bodycamera