Woolies workers attacked with a scooter by customer

CCTV footage shows the moment a worker was hit in the eye with a metal scooter by a disgruntled customer.

Shocking CCTV footage has emerged showing a customer’s brutal attack on a Woolworths worker.

In the footage, the worker can be seen trying to shield their face with their arms as a metal scooter is thrown at their head by a young customer, who then runs away.

The confronting footage also shows a number of other Woolies employees being punched in the face, ambushed at self-service check-outs and pushed over.

Frustrated with the increase of aggression shown towards their employees, Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci has released the footage and shared shocking details of how his employees have been subject to axe attacks and threatened with guns.

Woolworths has released CCTV footage showing customers attacking team members, as they call for respect in the lead up to Christmas.

Shockingly there has been a 50 per cent rise of reported incidents, compared to this time last year.

Woolworths Group has reported an average of 420 attacks per month across its supermarkets, including metro stores, and Big W stores.

“Abuse and violence of retail workers is now an epidemic. There have been stabbings, axe attacks and bashings in major retail outlets,” said Mr Smith.

With the troubling number of staff attacks increasing across the country, the supermarket giant is rolling out a number of counter measures to keep their workers safe during one of the busiest times of year.

Mr Banducci said while the majority of customers are amazing and treat their “team with respect”, the rise of unacceptable behaviour in stores has led to increased resilience and de-escalation training, as well as virtual reality training for common aggressive situations.

Woolworths has also invested more than $40 million across all Australia on CCTV upgrades to keep workers safe.

“In the past fortnight, we have had team members punched, spat on ... We are also seeing aggression and violence against our home delivery drivers with one driver recently pulled from his truck at gunpoint,” said Mr Banducci.

“This behaviour is unacceptable in our stores, across our delivery network or in any workplace. That’s why we need to continue to invest in safety for our team,” he continued.

A male customer wearing a white shirt can be seen kicking a Woolies team member inside the service desk in Parramatta.

Mr Banducci has called on shoppers to show respect and courtesy to all retail workers ahead of the festive season.

A new in-store campaign has also been launched, including in-store radio announcements and posters to remind customers to treat all team members with respect during the busiest shopping time of the year.

NSW Secretary of the SDA - the union for retail workers, Bernie Smith has welcomed the call for respect.

“There’s never an excuse to take out this kind of behaviour on the person there, who’s trying to help you,” he said.