Andrew Gwynne, MP for Denton and Reddish, is supporting a campaign by the Co-op to end violence against retail workers.
The British Retail Consortium reported that at least 424 violent or abusive incidents were reported every day in the year to April 2019, up by almost a tenth on the previous 12 months.
The Coronavirus crisis saw the number of incidents of abuse and violence increase considerably, to around 3,500 per day.
Some examples of incidents have included multiple threats by customers to cough on colleagues and ‘give them Coronavirus’ and further threats of assaults because people have had to queue to enter stores, socially distance or simply because they do not have a specific product.
Andrew Gwynne said:
“Our fantastic retail workers have been on the frontline during this crisis and have rightly been recognised as key workers.
“It is therefore very distressing to see the spike in assaults and intimidation of retail workers.
“Such attacks and abuse are absolutely disgraceful and I fully support the Co-op’s calls for new legislation to provide better protection to key workers in shops and stores around the country.”