The latest findings from the Trades Union Congress land with the weight of a national warning. Their new survey, covering more than five thousand workers across the UK, reveals a working world in which violence and abuse have become disturbingly routine. What emerges is not a collection of isolated incidents but a portrait of a workforce exposed, unprotected, and increasingly resigned to harm. It is a crisis that has been building in plain sight, and one that demands a far more serious response than it has so far received.
The headline figure is stark: eight in ten workers experienced some form of abuse in the past year. This is not a marginal problem affecting a handful of volatile workplaces. It is a systemic pattern cutting across transport, education, prisons, health and social care, and local government—sectors that form the backbone of public life. The survey shows that nearly 40% of respondents work in transport, a sector where staff shortages, passenger frustration, and operational pressures collide daily. Education workers report abuse from pupils and parents; prison staff face the constant threat of violence; health and social care workers navigate environments where emotional strain and under‑resourcing heighten risk. These are not abstract categories—they are the people who keep society functioning.
The frequency of abuse is equally troubling. More than half of workers say they experience violence or abuse weekly or more, and nearly one in five face it monthly. This regularity is what transforms individual incidents into a structural problem. When violence becomes predictable, it becomes normalised. And when it becomes normalised, it becomes invisible to those with the power to change it.
The perpetrators are not confined to one group. Customers, passengers, members of the public, pupils, colleagues, and even managers appear in the data. This breadth matters. It shows that violence is not simply a matter of “difficult customers” or “challenging environments”. It is a cultural issue—one that reflects how workers are valued, how services are funded, and how employers understand their duty of care.
The human consequences are severe. Nearly half of respondents feared for their safety during the most serious incident they experienced. Others suffered physical injury, required medical treatment, or needed police involvement. A third reported mental trauma. These are not minor workplace irritations; they are harms that reshape lives, careers, and families. Yet more than half of those who did not report incidents said they believed violence was simply “part of the job”. That phrase—so often repeated in frontline sectors—reveals the depth of resignation that has taken hold. It is a quiet, corrosive acceptance that harm is inevitable and that nothing will change.
This resignation is not accidental. It has been cultivated by a decade and a half of cuts to the very institutions meant to protect workers. The Health and Safety Executive, once a robust regulator, has seen its funding cut by more than 50% since 2010. Inspector numbers have fallen, inspections have dwindled, and enforcement has weakened. A regulator cannot regulate when starved of resources. The result is a vacuum in which employers face little scrutiny and workers face escalating risk. The TUC is right to call this out. A society that claims to value its frontline workers cannot simultaneously dismantle the structures designed to keep them safe.
The deeper question is why violence has become so embedded in the modern workplace. Part of the answer lies in austerity. When staffing levels fall, waiting times rise, and services strain under demand, frustration spills onto the people who remain. Another part lies in management culture. Too many employers treat violence as an unavoidable by‑product of public‑facing work rather than a preventable hazard. And then there is the silence—workers who do not report incidents because they believe nothing will happen. That silence is not apathy; it is exhaustion.
For unions, the implications are clear. Violence at work is not an individual problem but a collective one. It requires collective solutions: stronger reporting systems, violence‑specific risk assessments, trauma‑informed support, and a regulatory environment capable of enforcing the law. It also requires a cultural shift in which violence is recognised not as an occupational inevitability but as a failure of planning, staffing, and leadership.
The TUC’s message is blunt: unionised workplaces are safer. This is not rhetoric; it is borne out by decades of evidence. Where unions are present, risks are identified earlier, incidents are challenged, and employers are held to account. In a climate where violence is rising and regulatory oversight is weakening, collective organisation becomes not just beneficial but essential.
The crisis revealed by the TUC survey is not one that can be solved by platitudes or piecemeal interventions. It demands a national commitment to restoring the Health and Safety Executive, strengthening legal protections for public‑facing workers, and ensuring that employers meet their obligations. It demands that violence be treated not as an unfortunate feature of modern work but as a breach of fundamental rights.
Above all, it demands that workers are not left to face danger alone. Violence is never “part of the job”. It is a sign that something has gone profoundly wrong in the way we organise work, value labour, and protect those who serve the public. The task now is to confront that reality with honesty, urgency, and solidarity—and to build a working world in which safety is not a privilege but a guarantee.
By Maria Camara
Picture credit: KollectivFutur
