GROCERY delivery drivers have told of being hit, chased and having containers thrown at them as a survey revealed today that 77 per cent had been abused in the past year.

The Usdaw poll of more than 300 workers found 13 per cent were assaulted and 26 per cent had refused a delivery due to fear for their own personal safety.

“I tried to refuse a delivery once due to the customer’s unchecked aggression; he then ripped the shopping from my hands, hit me, chased me down the road, kept yelling and swearing while coming after me,” a respondent said.

Another told of a mother screaming at him when he refused to leave alcoholic products to her young son without proof of age — which is a legal requirement.

Delegates at Usdaw’s annual conference in Blackpool told of how they are also put at risk when making deliveries to flats without lifts.

They told of being forced to leave individual trays weighing up to 15kg with alcohol, cigarettes, knives and drug products in communal areas on the ground floor while getting no extra time for the jobs.

Moving a motion calling for a review, Tesco Fenland delegate Jonathan Kitchen-Jarvis suggested an arrangement with students at the University of Cambridge — where students have been picking up deliveries at the public entrances to their digs — could be rolled out across the country.

Delegates also moved a motion calling on retail giants to introduce minimum staffing levels to tackle shocking levels of violence against in-store staff and theft.

A growing number of stores are being run by one or two staff as the sector’s profit margins are hit by reduced consumer spending amid the cost-of-living crisis, they warned.

The motion says that the two or three “one size fits all” staffing algorithms used in the industry don’t work in cases where staff are faced “persistently with angry customers.”

“This policy of profits before people is leading to high levels of stress for shopworkers who are becoming increasingly asked to achieve unsustainable workloads,” it reads.

Nearly one in three finance bosses at retail companies said they planned to cut jobs in stores, the latest British Retail Consortium survey showed in February.

The sector has lost 250,000 jobs in the past five years.