The head of the union representing supermarket workers has said he was appalled by vision of a customer “physically and verbally assaulting” a Leanyer Woolworths employee and has called for the NT trespass laws to be reformed.

Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association NT director Shlok Sharma said the video posted on the Mango Inquirer Facebook page depicted a woman physically and verbally assaulting Woolworths staff and security.

“More must be done to protect retail workers from these kinds of vicious and uncalled for attacks, including reform of our trespass laws,” he said.

“The SDA is calling for NT trespass laws to be reformed to make it easier to issue trespass notices and stop abusive customers from re-entering workplaces.

“There’s no excuse for this behaviour and this should not be tolerated in any workplace.”

He told the ABC currently people can defend trespassing charges if they prove that they “did not see and could not reasonably be assumed to have seen the [trespass] notice posted on the land”, so it was difficult to enforce legally, a verbal ban placed on someone from going into a shop.

“We want the ambiguity cleared up in the act so businesses have more discretion to ban violent and abusive customers without necessarily having to engage them and to clear up the ambiguity [around] whether they can do it verbally,” he told the ABC.

In a later statement he said the NT trespass laws were leaving workers at risk of abuse and are failing to guarantee them a completely safe working environment and the NT must have reform.

“Under our current laws, abusive customers are only banned from re-entering workplaces for 24 hours,” he said.

“Allowing repeatedly abusive customers to continue to re-enter workplaces does not ensure workers’ long-term physical and mental well-being at work.

“Retail workers are just trying to do their job and do not deserve to be pushed or screamed at under any circumstances. Much more needs to be done at all levels to stop this epidemic of customer abuse.”

The ABC reported the NT government had not consulted the SDA or the NT Chamber of Commerce about changes to the laws, they quoted an spokesperson saying the government was “looking at amendments to the Trespass Act 1978 to make the process of issuing and enforcing trespass orders more streamline, as well as fining those who break these orders”.