A Community Union member speaks out on violence in the workplace
Conference
With 20 years of betting shop experience, violence is a daily occurrence. Verbal abuse is a daily reality, swearing, shouting and threats are all commonplace in my working day.
Two weeks into the job, a customer threw a chair at me, breaking the bandit screen. As an employee, my first response was to cry; as the employer their first response was to recoil. I was asked why I was crying, told not to be so stupid, told that it wasn’t the employers fault.
In my 20 years service, I have been robbed 9 times by gun, knife and axe. The most distressing was while pregnant, a man smashed the bandit screen, pulled a gun on me and cocked the gun to my stomach. Click. So scared, I opened the safe, let him take what he wanted. So scared I turned to my employer, looking for help. Within seconds I had gone from the victim to the accused. Was it my fault, did I know him, had I helped him, wanting only to go home, I had to work the rest of my shift and face questions and accusations. THIS CANNOT BE RIGHT.
Conference, the violence is getting worse. New gaming machines have made our shops more popular, the stakes even higher, the violence even worse. Too often, the employee is the accused, too often time off is refused and too often we face dismissal –apparently it’s always our fault
Well conference, there is a line in the sand, the Community Union is fighting back and we want you to join our struggle. The women who work in the 6000 betting shops in the UK need the voice of the 6 million workers in the TUC.
It is time for our minimum standards to get a statutory footing, for additional penalties to be put on those who assault people at work and it is time for everyone in betting shops to join a union.
We say no shops without CCTV, bandit screens and panic buttons, no shop with lone working and no woman left to work alone.