South Australia’s workplace health and safety regulator has signed on to the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association’s (SDA) nationwide industry statement pledging to eradicate customer abuse from the retail and fast food industries.

SafeWork SA joins more than 50 industry groups and major companies in signing the industry statement including Coles, Woolworths, ALDI the Reject Shop, Kmart, Myer, David Jones, National Retailers Association and Australian Retailers Association.

The industry statement pledges support for the eradication of customer abuse and violence, as well agreeing to encourage and facilitate the reporting of all forms of customer perpetrated abuse and violence towards workers, including sexual harassment and assault.

The partnership follows a state-wide SafeWork SA campaign, which launched mid-year, aiming to reduce work-related violence and aggression in the retail sector.

The campaign included audits of retail businesses in metropolitan and regional areas to ensure they had:

• appropriate policies and procedures in place to address the risk of violence and aggression
• relevant training for workers
• suitable control measures in place to protect workers.

SafeWork SA Executive Director Martyn Campbell said the SDA partnership was the agency’s next step in its bid to further protect retail workers.

‘Like all workers, retail staff have the right to carry out their jobs without the threat of violence and abuse,’ he said.

‘A number of these workers are young, work in isolation and may be unfamiliar with managing aggressive customers.

‘This partnership with the SDA is another step forward in our mission to create safer workplaces for South Australian retail workers.’

According to a recent report by the National Retailers Association, some retailers saw a 400 per cent increase in customer abuse during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

A recent study by the SDA found that one in five retail workers surveyed were spat on or coughed on by customers in 2020.

SDA Secretary Josh Peak said SafeWork SA was the latest in a series of safety regulators to join the campaign.

‘We’re proud to see SafeWork SA sign onto our industry statement and do their part to eliminate abuse and violence towards retail workers across South Australia,’ he said.

‘Customer abuse and violence is a very real issue for retail workers and more needs to be done.

‘In order to stop the alarming rise of customer abuse, we need everyone to come to the table and work to prevent this including retailers, business groups and the public.’