More than 1.4 million people are employed in Australian retail and fast food businesses. Sadly, it’s not always a happy or safe place to work.

A union survey of more than 4600 frontline workers found 87 per cent had experienced customer verbal abuse in 2023 – consistent since 2016.

But incidents have become more frequent: In 2023, 76 per cent of those who’d been abused experienced it daily, weekly or monthly, compared with 54 per cent just two years earlier.

Retailers have spent millions on beefed-up staff security measures, including body-worn cameras.

The lead-up to Christmas is a notoriously bad time for customer violence and abuse against workers. On Thursday, a large collective of retail groups launched a national “Be Kind in Retail” campaign, urging shoppers to be compassionate and patient over Christmas.

But there is one ultra-cheap solution, trialled since 2020, which our three-part study has confirmed seems to significantly reduce customers’ intention to verbally abuse workers.

In late 2017, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association union launched its “No One Deserves a Serve” campaign to reduce abuse of frontline........

© The New Daily