Woolworths staff in Melbourne fear for their safety after customers throw CHICKENS at their heads

Woolworths staff fear for their safety after customers throw CHICKENS at their heads and threaten to stab them

  • Woolworths staff have been left fearing for their safety after customer abuse
  • The claims, from a Melbourne store, include threats of stabbings toward staff 
  • One employee even said an agitated customer threw a chicken at his head 
  • But the supermarket giant has hit back, claiming the reports have been ‘very few’

Staff at a suburban supermarket have been left fearing for their safety amid claims of customer abuse and a lack of security. 

The concerns have led to more than 50 workers banding together in a bid to curb the mistreatment, at the Woolworths store at Moorabbin, in Melbourne’s south-east.

And while retail is an industry synonymous with an agitated public, one worker has gone so far as to claim a customer threw a chicken at his head. 

Staff at a suburban Woolworths supermarket in Melbourne have been left fearing for their safety amid claims of customer abuse and a lack of security

Andrew Berecz, who works in the store’s deli, said the incident happened due to the customer’s belief she hadn’t been served quickly enough.

‘She got more and more agitated and eventually threw the chicken at my head over the counter,’ he told the The Age.

‘She was saying she was going to make me lose my job and that I was beneath her, she was belittling me…there was no security guard there at the time. There’s no one there stopping that sort of behaviour.’ 

Other allegations include threats of violence towards managers and a regular stream of verbal abuse directed towards employees. 

Primarily staff are advocating for a full-time security guard instead of just before 7pm. They had a guard from 7pm until midnight until that service was abruptly stopped from Monday.

But despite the allegations, the supermarket giant said it has already taken action against complaints reported from the store. 

Primarily staff are advocating for a full-time security guard instead of just after 7pm - a service which was abruptly stopped from Monday

Primarily staff are advocating for a full-time security guard instead of just after 7pm – a service which was abruptly stopped from Monday

‘We have found very few instances of poor customer behaviour at our Moorabbin store in the past year. In the rare cases we have seen poor behaviour we have taken strong action in response, including banning a customer from the store,’ a company representative said.  

But it’s not the first time Woolworths has been embroiled in a workers’ controversy this week, a Big W employee has received a half-million dollar payout for a workplace accident.

The settlement came after it was revealed the company hired a private investigator to debunk the severity of an injury she sustained at work. 

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