[3] Usdaw members work in a variety of occupations and industries including: shopworkers, factory and warehouse workers, drivers, call centres, clerical workers, milkround and dairy process, butchers and meat packers, catering, laundries, chemical processing, home shopping and pharmaceutical.

Usdaw relies upon a "partnership" model with large employers such as with Tesco, where the management of both the business and the trade union have "privileged access" to their counterparts.

[4] This attitude has earned the union the pejorative backronym of Useless Seven Days A Week amongst workers and trade unionists.

[11] In September 2024, Udsaw won a Supreme Court battle against Tesco over so-called "fire and rehire" plans put forward by the supermarket giant.

Statistics taken from the USDAW 2022 annual survey of over 7,700 of its retail members showed that high levels of verbal abuse, threats and assaults were common in the industry.