The Guild have expressed serious concerns as new figures reveal a shocking risk in attacks, abuse and threats suffered by shopworkers. The British Retail Consortium figures for 2003 show verbal abuse has more than doubled, up from 70 incidents per 100 outlets in 2002 to 159 in 2003.

Threats of violence have increased even more rapidly, up from 18 per 1,000 staff in 2002 to 47 in 2003. 
Actual physical attacks are also up from six per 1,000 staff in 2002 to seven in 2003. Usdaw, the trade union for shopworkers, said its members were working in an 'increasingly hostile and dangerous environment.' John Hannett, Usdaw general secretary, said: 'The scale of the problem is astonishing and with over 10 per cent of the UK’s workforce being employed in retail, this issue affects a significant number of people.'
Tony Woodley, general secretary of general union TGWU, said his union 'believes that frontline staff in retail, transport, licensed premises and public services should not have to face violence or abuse when they are merely doing their job serving the public.' He added: 'We demand effective action to prevent abuse and violence, a speedy police response, the use of anti-social behaviour orders and deterrent penalties against convicted offenders.'
John Haywood, Director of Guild of Security UK Ltd said, 'We are not the least bit suprised at these findings as workplace violence increases year after year. Some employers like Tesco, Sainsburys, Matalan etc are doing the responsible thing and using outside training providers such as Training For Success Ltd to train their staff in conflict management and therefore reduce the overall risk to their staff but others, in particular the security companies that very often are employed in these stores to protect the workforce from violence related incidents do nothing. Despite conflict management training being a requirement of the new Security Industry licence, very few security companies are taking steps to provide this training to their employees."