Royal Mail And CWU Joint Summer Dog Attack Awareness Safety Campaign Launched

Probably one of the most significant and comprehensive health and safety campaigns to be developed will be launched today, jointly by the CWU and Royal Mail.

Dave Joyce National Health, Safety & Environment Officer and lead officer for the union’s ‘CWU 'Bite-Back' Campaign’ on dangerous dogs, issued yesterday LTB534/12 to give advance notice to all union branches of today’s launch.

The LTB is jam packed with detail of both the campaign and also with Top Tips for Dog Owners to ensure your dog is not a danger to postal staff delivering mail to your door.

The LTB provides details and scale of the campaign:

On Wednesday 18th July Royal Mail and the CWU will jointly launch a major 'two-pronged' campaign consisting of a Customer Dog Control appeal and an Employee Dog Attack awareness initiative as we approach the Summer School holidays when as Postal Branches all know, we annually see a sharp increase in dog attacks on our members.

Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union will be appealing to dog owners to work with us to help keep their animals under control when the postman/woman calls to deliver mail during the school holidays this summer.

3000 - 4000 postmen and women were attacked across the UK by dogs from April 2011 to April 2012, according to Royal Mail statistics. Joint Efforts by CWU Area Safety Reps and Workplace Safety Reps and Regional Royal Mail safety teams have driven numbers down, since the 2007/8 peak of 6,500 attacks, through the implementation of the new "WRAP Dog Attack Policy" and concerted local efforts to control risks and suspend deliveries where necessary.

While the number of attacks has fallen, it still remains unacceptably high and the nature and seriousness of the injuries being received by members is a growing concern. There is a jointly agreed commitment to drive numbers down further and Royal Mail and the CWU are working together to raise awareness of the reality of dog attacks through targeted campaigns and the CWU led 'Bite-Back' campaign.

There is a Royal Mail ongoing commitment to back the CWU 'Bite-Back' Campaign I am pleased to report.

Postmen and women face increased danger during school holidays when parents and children are at home with dogs sometimes allowed unsupervised in the garden or out onto the streets without restraints. Front, Side or Back Doors and windows are left open and dogs are in many cases free to move in and out of the property when Postal delivery staff arrive.

This carefree attitude greatly increases the risk of attacks which year on year consistently increase and peak during the prolonged summer school holiday period. Royal Mail and the CWU are asking customers to keep their pets under control and are issuing top tips in an attempt to reduce the number of dog attacks this summer when the number of attacks remains unacceptably high.

Royal Mail's stated main aim is to always prevent attacks. Where there's an address with identified risk from a dog, Royal Mail are committed to working with the customer to agree simple steps to ensure the Mail can be delivered safely. Where that's not possible and deliveries are assessed as unsafe the deliveries will be suspended until such time as the risk is brought under control.

With regards to internal measures to improve the safety of our delivery members, Royal Mail are committed to regularly communicate with the workforce about the dangers of dog attacks and provide advice to postmen and women on techniques to minimise the risk of attacks or harm in the event of an attack. ASRs should be making this a priority as we launch this campaign and engaging in discussions locally with Delivery Management and Royal Mail Regional Safety Teams in order to maximise the impact of the campaign.  

Royal Mail has already spent more than £100,000 on awareness campaigns and equipment to help postmen and women reduce the risk of injury with 90,000 ‘posting pegs’ having been distributed across the UK to Delivery Offices. These are the devices used to put letters through the letterbox when dogs are inside in order to protect the fingers of postmen and women. During the last year we have had a number of members have fingers and finger tips bitten off and it's important the message is conveyed to the delivery workforce on this issue.

It has been agreed that in the autumn, we will be jointly trialling customer leaflets aimed at raising customer awareness to the risks of dog attacks on Postal Workers. The trial areas identified are Central Reading, Huddersfield, Lymington, Morpeth, North Tyneside and Truro.

Royal Mail's stated policy is that the first priority as an employer is to ensure the welfare and safety of the delivery workforce who provide a valuable service across the UK to the customers. 

However, even just being threatened by an unrestrained aggressive dog is a frightening situation for Royal Mail delivery staff and the appeal to owners to keep their pets under control, especially if they know their pets have a territorial nature.

The age old image of the dog attacking the postman is not a laughing matter. Thousands of our members are bitten every year and hundreds suffer debilitating injuries every year which leave them with physical and psychological scarring, some with life changing disabilities and all in the course of doing their job.

There are so many things that dog owners can do to reduce the likelihood of an attack taking place so Royal Mail and the CWU is strongly urging all dog owners to look at these top tips. Prevention is always better than the cure when it comes to dog attacks so we hope that all dog owners will take a moment to check where their pet is, especially over the summer holidays when attacks increase.

LTB534/12 in full can be downloaded here

Source: CWU / Royal Mail

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