The amount of reporting of incidents of verbal and physical abuse made by public-facing workers on the highway network has increased significantly over the past year due to the increased awareness of the issue raised by the Stamp It Out campaign with over 60% of roadworkers reporting abuse on a weekly basis, some even as much as once a night.
This is set to continue next month as the campaign moves to the next level, with the industry coming together for the first ever first Respect our Workforce week.
The campaign is calling on the whole supply chain to help raise awareness of the challenges facing our workforce as well as the solutions being providing to solve them.
Taking place 11-15th of March, Respect Our Workforce week, aims to empower the workforce and influence a change of attitudes towards the highways sector’s workers.
The campaign aims to:
• Keep on highlighting the issue of workforce abuse and update the industry on the
success of the Stamp It Out campaign
• Provide the industry with a number of resources to enable them to support this
• Work with police forces around the country to work towards delivering more convictions of those who abuse public-facing workers
• Work with government to raise awareness and to enourage them to understand the extent and challenges related to abuse of public-facing workers
• Work with industry to improve and make communication to the public more consistent
• Work with the press and industry associations to help communicate the messages of the campaign and help get this issue discussed in board rooms around the country
There will be a number of resources for the industry to use to help support the campaign, which will be available on the Stamp It Out website @ www.stampitout.org, from 1st March.
The last 12 months has seen over 150 companies sign the Stamp It Out commitment, including several local authorities, many of who have or are set to roll the campaign out across their regions as well as across departments to ensure all public facing workers can be afforded the same protection as highways workers.
“Respect our Workforce week marks a vital point in this campaign. But as we look back on a successful 12 months, there is still much work to do towards our aim of eradicating abuse of roadworkers and all those that work on the highway or in a public-facing role. It is not acceptable to abuse a doctor, nurse, teacher or retailer worker, so why should those working on the public highway accept this too?,” said Kevin Robinson, founder and Campaign Director of Stamp It Out and Think Respect.
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