Retail workers want the right to defend themselves
Photo: Getty Images/stevecoleimages

A RetailWire headline last October asked the question: “Who protects store associates when shoppers lash out?” The answer to that question may come in new labor contracts being negotiated by unions representing frontline retail workers and their employers.

A New York Times article reports that the United Food and Commercial Workers union made sure to include the right of self defense for workers if they are attacked on the job. Associates in the past have been terminated from their jobs after physically engaging with customers or shoplifters over safety and liability concerns.

Kim Cordova, president of UFCW local 7 in Colorado, told the Times that the way people reacted to safety measures put in place to curtail the spread of COVID-19 prompted the need for the new provisions in workers’ contracts.

Associates were regularly verbally abused and too frequently physically attacked for enforcing public safety and/or corporate rules intended to protect workers and customers from the virus that has killed more than one million Americans and left many other with long-term medical issues.

The Times did an analysis of crime statistics published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and found that assaults from 2018 to 2020 increased 63 percent in grocery stores and 75 percent in convenience stores. More than two million assault cases were reported to the FBI during that period, with 82,000 taking place in shopping malls, convenience stores and other retail locations.

Retail stores, including King Soopers, Tops and Walmart, have been the sites of mass shooting incidents perpetrated by mentally ill individuals or those espousing political hate ideologies.

There is also the growing spate of smash and grab incidents where gangs of shoplifters mob a store and make off with merchandise. Incidents such as this always increase the chance that workers will find themselves in between thieves and their plans to make off with merchandise.

Around 80 looters last November blocked the street with their cars before they flooded into a Nordstrom store in California. They grabbed armfuls of merchandise inside the store and attacked associates with punches, kicks and pepper spray, according to NBC News. The raid took only one minute.

BrainTrust

“The bottom line is that retailers need to work harder to keep their people safe.”

Neil Saunders

Managing Director, GlobalData


Discussion Questions

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Should retail industry employers give frontline associates the right to defend themselves and customers inside stores or should they continue to ban physical interactions with thieves and aggressive people? Do you see changes in store layouts, use of security personnel, technology, etc. as helping to address incidents of violent crime in stores?

Poll

Do you agree or disagree that retailers are taking active steps that will reduce physical violence in stores over the next several years?

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24 responses to “Retail workers want the right to defend themselves”

  1. Mark Ryski Avatar
    Mark Ryski

    These stories about confrontations in stores are truly terrifying. And while everyone should have the right to defend themselves from physical harm, a better option is to hire trained security personnel. Retail leaders cannot expect frontline staff to service customers and police unruly customers, let alone defend themselves from physical harm. Meaningful investments in security need to be made.

  2. Dave Bruno Avatar
    Dave Bruno

    There are simply no easy answers here. Of course, people need the right to protect themselves when assaulted, but with the terrifying proliferation of weapons in our society today, one must always take steps to prevent altercations from escalating. In addition to the right to protect themselves, associates should demand proper incident training techniques. De-escalation is almost always the right answer, but rarely easy to achieve.

  3. Neil Saunders Avatar
    Neil Saunders

    If a customer is acting with physical violence against a member of staff or aggressively shoplifting then that customer completely loses their rights; it is perfectly legitimate for reasonable force to be used against them. The question is who should use that force? The answer in retail is usually that trained security personnel are in the best position to act and restrain the shopper. Other frontline workers would be entitled to use force if they were personally being endangered, but it is not really a desirable solution and runs the risk of escalation and putting them in greater danger. The bottom line is that retailers need to work harder to keep their people safe.

  4. Gene Detroyer Avatar
    Gene Detroyer

    This is dangerous but necessary. Judging what is a justifiable assault to respond to versus ultra-angry behavior is going to be very difficult. Are we going to experience a slippery slope?

    What has happened to the culture of this country is very disturbing. I believe that the only way to solve these issues is to change the culture, which in the short term is impossible. I am saddened by the way people react to everyday slights and less.

    Somehow, we as a population have made this kind of reaction acceptable. Yes, we wring our hands, but we do nothing about it. Aggressive behavior has become acceptable.

  5. Gary Sankary Avatar
    Gary Sankary

    Hard NO. Even if we assumed that in all confrontations the store team member is 100 percent in the right and the bad actor customer is 100 percent in the wrong, still no. Thinking back to the beginning of the mask mandates, I’m quite certain we would have seen serious bloodshed if employees were allowed to defend themselves in some really horrible situations. These interactions MUST be left to professionals to deal with, full stop. The exposure risk for the retailer is astronomical. This might be one scenario where insurance and risk management companies will step in to stop this before someone does something stupid.

  6. Georganne Bender Avatar
    Georganne Bender

    I have been in situations with aggressive shoplifters many times and I’ve gone into auto-mode, doing enough to be able to walk away. But when somebody pulls a gun all bets are off. That’s when I turned in my keys and got a corporate job.

    We live in aggressive times. It’s a scary situation because you don’t know what people are capable of doing. Certainly, store personnel should have the right to defend themselves but as Gary Sankary points out this too is dangerous. It’s the retailer’s responsibility to have methods in place to protect the associates, customers and the store. Grocers love a grid layout with high gondolas that create blind spots; relying less on this and opening the site lines will help but I doubt many would be willing to give up that selling space.

    This is a dilemma for store security experts, and one that requires immediate attention.

  7. Mohamed Amer, PhD Avatar
    Mohamed Amer, PhD

    No. No. No. This isn’t about going retro and installing armed sheriffs in each retailer à la the Old West. That’s like saying let’s fight fire with fire, and let the chips fall where they may.

  8. Brandon Rael Avatar
    Brandon Rael

    Retail frontline associates already have enough pressures and responsibilities to keep the operation going. To expect frontline associates to have to defend themselves in the face of violence is a shocking development. They are not trained or prepared to act as the first line of defense when shoplifting or violent acts occur in the stores.

    Sadly, this is a sobering reflection of our culture and society, where violent acts could happen at any moment. Store associates should feel the safety and security they need to perform their jobs. Retail operations need adequately trained security personnel to handle such incidents, not front-line associates who earn a living and do their jobs.

  9. Doug Garnett Avatar
    Doug Garnett

    Is the right to defend oneself against a violent customer something for retailers to “give”? One would think it’s a fundamental human right. I suppose what’s meant here is that retailers would cede some rights to fire people who do defend themselves.

    Store employee perception can be incorrect leading some to “defend” when they aren’t in danger. That said, retailers need to support employees more and quit seeing them as pawns or cannon fodder. I would suspect if front line employees were offered more fundamental human respect in their daily work, this would be less of an issue.

    What respect? Stop. Punishing. Employees. For. Store. Ratings. Store ratings are primarily not within the control of the employee.

  10. Gene Detroyer Avatar
    Gene Detroyer

    I am curious. BrainTrust, when was the first time you noticed any security personnel in a retail store?

    1. Gary Sankary Avatar
      Gary Sankary

      Target has a dedicated team of in-store security people. I see them every time I shop there. They’re not armed, but they wear uniforms, calling them out as Asset Protection. Best Buy is another where store security is very high profile—expected given the nature of the products they sell. Other than those two specific examples, I don’t see security in stores. Full disclosure, there are only about 3-4 other brand stores that I visit, so I don’t think I’m a great resource here.

    2. Rich Kizer Avatar
      Rich Kizer

      The point is, they should not be that evident. if they are, I fear it would scare customers. Then the question, when is the last time you saw a customer in the store? (I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek.)

    3. Gene Detroyer Avatar
      Gene Detroyer

      Except for banks, I don’t recall seeing security people in retailers 20 or 30 years ago.

  11. Lee Peterson Avatar
    Lee Peterson

    There’s a lot you can do to prevent theft without fighting someone or shooting a perp (is that what we’re really talking about, by the way?) — the store can be designed better (think: sight lines), you can have more employees on the floor, some of them actually trained to spot thieves and you can set up your entrance and windows to help slow that type of thing down as well.

    The other thing you can do is have more showroom stores (which have always tested well) with less inventory, size and chance for a big score. I’m still wondering why we don’t see more of those.

  12. Ryan Mathews Avatar
    Ryan Mathews

    The retail world is a dangerous place these days. Many customers, and more than a few employees, are armed, angry, and prepared to meet force with force. Let that happen and you are going to have anarchy and a lot of dead and hospitalized customers and retail workers. I tended bar in college and grad school and was armed all of the time. Did that stop two armed robberies, multiple stabbings, and more than one “Wild West” showdown? Nope! And that was in a relatively saner time. The recent shooting in Uvalde, Texas shows us that arming folks isn’t always an effective deterrent, Neither is condoning bar brawls in retail stores. That said, retail workers and customers have a human right to assume they aren’t going to be threatened, hurt, or killed just because they went shopping or reported into work. Great to advocate for security guards, but most of them are either not or undertrained, underpaid, and just working security because ironically it’s one of the easiest jobs to get. Workplace safety is a serious problem and requires serious solutions, but allowing employees to fight it out wirth shoplifters isn’t the answer.

  13. Al McClain Avatar
    Al McClain

    The other day, in Atlanta, a Subway sandwich worker was killed because the customer thought she put too much mayo on his sandwich. So, he shot her and her co-worker in front of a 5 year old daughter of one of them. The gun and hostility culture in this country has won. Short-term, I propose security in every store, cost be damned. Long-term, gun buyback programs with huge payouts and restricting gun sales are the only things I can think of. But, since half the country won’t go along with that, I think it’s every person for themselves and every retailer for themselves. It will get much worse before it gets better, I fear.

    1. Gene Detroyer Avatar
      Gene Detroyer

      Culture, culture, culture!

    2. Gene Detroyer Avatar
      Gene Detroyer

      We regularly have gun buy-backs in NYC. It is a great scheme. Bad guys turn in their guns, get cash, and get more guns. The winner is the manufacturers of guns. Is this the circular economy?

      1. Al McClain Avatar
        Al McClain

        I think buybacks will only work if we regulate gun sales at the same time. But, that seems to be an impossible goal for society as it is in the US today.

      2. Ryan Mathews Avatar
        Ryan Mathews

        Al,

        There are just too many guns out there for buy-backs to have any demonstrable impact. I mean we are talking about (literally) at least 440 million guns that we know of, so that genie is out of the bottle.

        You want to make a dent in the problem? Make every gun and gun-related offense subject to a term of natural life in prison. It would take a minute, but over time, carrying a weapon would suddenly start looking a lot less attractive.

        Also, we need to get somebody with half a brain inside the NRA. Gun owners need to understand that the real threat to gun ownership isn’t AOC and the Dems, but an irrational NRA which is doing everything in its power to get away from its initial purpose. The NRA is the one that should be lobbying for registration, mandatory training for licensing, completion go fun safety courses (which they could make a fortune on), Red Flag laws, etc., etc. Get all those things in place and it’s much harder to advocate all guns be turned in and destroyed.

        No legitimate gun owner wants to protect the right of criminals to bear and use guns in the completion of their crimes or arming the mentally ill, but you’d never guess that from the kinds of legislation “their lobbyist” — the NRA — proposes and opposes.

      3. Mark Ryski Avatar
        Mark Ryski

        Good points Ryan. For additional context, in 2021 it’s estimated that were 298 M smartphones in the US … 298 M vs. 440M.

  14. Rich Kizer Avatar
    Rich Kizer

    I would never put the store staff in Jeopardy. If violent escalation would erupt, an off-duty police officer can control the situation. Yes, I would hire the police.

  15. Rich Kizer Avatar
    Rich Kizer

    One further thought. If there is a fight or other occurrence, the police will be much more adept in handling the situation. If the confrontation gets out of hand, likely the news media will not blow it up if they hear of it. But if it is an employee, then it becomes news. That you don’t want — obviously.

  16. Craig Sundstrom Avatar
    Craig Sundstrom

    This seems a little misleading: typically associates are terminated for unnecessarily engaging with criminals, not “defending themselves”; that is to say it’s actually a safety measure to discourage ill-considered heroics (whether/not that’s the proper response is of course open to debate).

    Like every other issue retail faces, security and safety are permanent challenges.

24 Comments
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Mark Ryski
Mark Ryski
Trusted Member
1 year ago

These stories about confrontations in stores are truly terrifying. And while everyone should have the right to defend themselves from physical harm, a better option is to hire trained security personnel. Retail leaders cannot expect frontline staff to service customers and police unruly customers, let alone defend themselves from physical harm. Meaningful investments in security need to be made.

12
Dave Bruno
Dave Bruno
Member
1 year ago

There are simply no easy answers here. Of course, people need the right to protect themselves when assaulted, but with the terrifying proliferation of weapons in our society today, one must always take steps to prevent altercations from escalating. In addition to the right to protect themselves, associates should demand proper incident training techniques. De-escalation is almost always the right answer, but rarely easy to achieve.

7
Neil Saunders
Neil Saunders
Noble Member
1 year ago

If a customer is acting with physical violence against a member of staff or aggressively shoplifting then that customer completely loses their rights; it is perfectly legitimate for reasonable force to be used against them. The question is who should use that force? The answer in retail is usually that trained security personnel are in the best position to act and restrain the shopper. Other frontline workers would be entitled to use force if they were personally being endangered, but it is not really a desirable solution and runs the risk of escalation and putting them in greater danger. The bottom line is that retailers need to work harder to keep their people safe.

10
Gene Detroyer
Gene Detroyer
Trusted Member
1 year ago

This is dangerous but necessary. Judging what is a justifiable assault to respond to versus ultra-angry behavior is going to be very difficult. Are we going to experience a slippery slope?

What has happened to the culture of this country is very disturbing. I believe that the only way to solve these issues is to change the culture, which in the short term is impossible. I am saddened by the way people react to everyday slights and less.

Somehow, we as a population have made this kind of reaction acceptable. Yes, we wring our hands, but we do nothing about it. Aggressive behavior has become acceptable.

8
Gary Sankary
Gary Sankary
Active Member
1 year ago

Hard NO. Even if we assumed that in all confrontations the store team member is 100 percent in the right and the bad actor customer is 100 percent in the wrong, still no. Thinking back to the beginning of the mask mandates, I’m quite certain we would have seen serious bloodshed if employees were allowed to defend themselves in some really horrible situations. These interactions MUST be left to professionals to deal with, full stop. The exposure risk for the retailer is astronomical. This might be one scenario where insurance and risk management companies will step in to stop this before someone does something stupid.

9
Georganne Bender
Georganne Bender
Active Member
1 year ago

I have been in situations with aggressive shoplifters many times and I’ve gone into auto-mode, doing enough to be able to walk away. But when somebody pulls a gun all bets are off. That’s when I turned in my keys and got a corporate job.

We live in aggressive times. It’s a scary situation because you don’t know what people are capable of doing. Certainly, store personnel should have the right to defend themselves but as Gary Sankary points out this too is dangerous. It’s the retailer’s responsibility to have methods in place to protect the associates, customers and the store. Grocers love a grid layout with high gondolas that create blind spots; relying less on this and opening the site lines will help but I doubt many would be willing to give up that selling space.

This is a dilemma for store security experts, and one that requires immediate attention.

8
Mohamed Amer, PhD
Mohamed Amer, PhD
Member
1 year ago

No. No. No. This isn’t about going retro and installing armed sheriffs in each retailer à la the Old West. That’s like saying let’s fight fire with fire, and let the chips fall where they may.

9
Brandon Rael
Brandon Rael
Active Member
1 year ago

Retail frontline associates already have enough pressures and responsibilities to keep the operation going. To expect frontline associates to have to defend themselves in the face of violence is a shocking development. They are not trained or prepared to act as the first line of defense when shoplifting or violent acts occur in the stores.

Sadly, this is a sobering reflection of our culture and society, where violent acts could happen at any moment. Store associates should feel the safety and security they need to perform their jobs. Retail operations need adequately trained security personnel to handle such incidents, not front-line associates who earn a living and do their jobs.

3
Doug Garnett
Doug Garnett
Member
1 year ago

Is the right to defend oneself against a violent customer something for retailers to “give”? One would think it’s a fundamental human right. I suppose what’s meant here is that retailers would cede some rights to fire people who do defend themselves.

Store employee perception can be incorrect leading some to “defend” when they aren’t in danger. That said, retailers need to support employees more and quit seeing them as pawns or cannon fodder. I would suspect if front line employees were offered more fundamental human respect in their daily work, this would be less of an issue.

What respect? Stop. Punishing. Employees. For. Store. Ratings. Store ratings are primarily not within the control of the employee.

4
Gene Detroyer
Gene Detroyer
Trusted Member
1 year ago

I am curious. BrainTrust, when was the first time you noticed any security personnel in a retail store?

2
Gary Sankary
Gary Sankary
Active Member
Reply to  Gene Detroyer
1 year ago

Target has a dedicated team of in-store security people. I see them every time I shop there. They’re not armed, but they wear uniforms, calling them out as Asset Protection. Best Buy is another where store security is very high profile—expected given the nature of the products they sell. Other than those two specific examples, I don’t see security in stores. Full disclosure, there are only about 3-4 other brand stores that I visit, so I don’t think I’m a great resource here.

4
Rich Kizer
Rich Kizer
Member
Reply to  Gene Detroyer
1 year ago

The point is, they should not be that evident. if they are, I fear it would scare customers. Then the question, when is the last time you saw a customer in the store? (I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek.)

2
Gene Detroyer
Gene Detroyer
Trusted Member
Reply to  Gene Detroyer
1 year ago

Except for banks, I don’t recall seeing security people in retailers 20 or 30 years ago.

0
Lee Peterson
Lee Peterson
Member
1 year ago

There’s a lot you can do to prevent theft without fighting someone or shooting a perp (is that what we’re really talking about, by the way?) — the store can be designed better (think: sight lines), you can have more employees on the floor, some of them actually trained to spot thieves and you can set up your entrance and windows to help slow that type of thing down as well.

The other thing you can do is have more showroom stores (which have always tested well) with less inventory, size and chance for a big score. I’m still wondering why we don’t see more of those.

4
Ryan Mathews
Ryan Mathews
Active Member
1 year ago

The retail world is a dangerous place these days. Many customers, and more than a few employees, are armed, angry, and prepared to meet force with force. Let that happen and you are going to have anarchy and a lot of dead and hospitalized customers and retail workers. I tended bar in college and grad school and was armed all of the time. Did that stop two armed robberies, multiple stabbings, and more than one “Wild West” showdown? Nope! And that was in a relatively saner time. The recent shooting in Uvalde, Texas shows us that arming folks isn’t always an effective deterrent, Neither is condoning bar brawls in retail stores. That said, retail workers and customers have a human right to assume they aren’t going to be threatened, hurt, or killed just because they went shopping or reported into work. Great to advocate for security guards, but most of them are either not or undertrained, underpaid, and just working security because ironically it’s one of the easiest jobs to get. Workplace safety is a serious problem and requires serious solutions, but allowing employees to fight it out wirth shoplifters isn’t the answer.

5
Al McClain
Al McClain
Member
1 year ago

The other day, in Atlanta, a Subway sandwich worker was killed because the customer thought she put too much mayo on his sandwich. So, he shot her and her co-worker in front of a 5 year old daughter of one of them. The gun and hostility culture in this country has won. Short-term, I propose security in every store, cost be damned. Long-term, gun buyback programs with huge payouts and restricting gun sales are the only things I can think of. But, since half the country won’t go along with that, I think it’s every person for themselves and every retailer for themselves. It will get much worse before it gets better, I fear.

8
Gene Detroyer
Gene Detroyer
Trusted Member
Reply to  Al McClain
1 year ago

Culture, culture, culture!

0
Gene Detroyer
Gene Detroyer
Trusted Member
Reply to  Al McClain
1 year ago

We regularly have gun buy-backs in NYC. It is a great scheme. Bad guys turn in their guns, get cash, and get more guns. The winner is the manufacturers of guns. Is this the circular economy?

1
Al McClain
Al McClain
Member
Reply to  Gene Detroyer
1 year ago

I think buybacks will only work if we regulate gun sales at the same time. But, that seems to be an impossible goal for society as it is in the US today.

2
Ryan Mathews
Ryan Mathews
Active Member
Reply to  Al McClain
1 year ago

Al,

There are just too many guns out there for buy-backs to have any demonstrable impact. I mean we are talking about (literally) at least 440 million guns that we know of, so that genie is out of the bottle.

You want to make a dent in the problem? Make every gun and gun-related offense subject to a term of natural life in prison. It would take a minute, but over time, carrying a weapon would suddenly start looking a lot less attractive.

Also, we need to get somebody with half a brain inside the NRA. Gun owners need to understand that the real threat to gun ownership isn’t AOC and the Dems, but an irrational NRA which is doing everything in its power to get away from its initial purpose. The NRA is the one that should be lobbying for registration, mandatory training for licensing, completion go fun safety courses (which they could make a fortune on), Red Flag laws, etc., etc. Get all those things in place and it’s much harder to advocate all guns be turned in and destroyed.

No legitimate gun owner wants to protect the right of criminals to bear and use guns in the completion of their crimes or arming the mentally ill, but you’d never guess that from the kinds of legislation “their lobbyist” — the NRA — proposes and opposes.

3
Mark Ryski
Mark Ryski
Trusted Member
Reply to  Ryan Mathews
1 year ago

Good points Ryan. For additional context, in 2021 it’s estimated that were 298 M smartphones in the US … 298 M vs. 440M.

1
Rich Kizer
Rich Kizer
Member
1 year ago

I would never put the store staff in Jeopardy. If violent escalation would erupt, an off-duty police officer can control the situation. Yes, I would hire the police.

3
Rich Kizer
Rich Kizer
Member
1 year ago

One further thought. If there is a fight or other occurrence, the police will be much more adept in handling the situation. If the confrontation gets out of hand, likely the news media will not blow it up if they hear of it. But if it is an employee, then it becomes news. That you don’t want — obviously.

3
Craig Sundstrom
Craig Sundstrom
Active Member
1 year ago

This seems a little misleading: typically associates are terminated for unnecessarily engaging with criminals, not “defending themselves”; that is to say it’s actually a safety measure to discourage ill-considered heroics (whether/not that’s the proper response is of course open to debate).

Like every other issue retail faces, security and safety are permanent challenges.

1