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CWU's Dave Joyce Quoted In Guardian Newspaper In Dangerous Dogs Article
A Letter To CWU's Branches, LTB267/24 issued on 30th July; promotes the article as a "....a two-page feature article on dog attacks on UK Postal Workers, has today been published in the Guardian’s G2 section on pages 6 and 7." In the LTB, Dave Joyce comments: "This well-written article by journalist Emma Beddington follows on from our RM/CWU Joint Dog Awareness Week Campaign efforts earlier this month, our press statement and releases plus the circulation and promotion of our ‘responsible dog ownership’ leaflet. All part of the CWU’s continuing efforts to raise awareness of the growing number of dog attacks on CWU member, postal workers in Royal Mail and Parcelforce which is nothing short of a ‘National Crisis’ of ‘Epidemic Proportions’ with numbers increasing 15% a year along with worsening injuries being sustained by victims." The LTB continues: "We have called for the new UK Labour Government, UK police forces and Crown Prosecution Service to take firm action, clamping down on irresponsible, criminal dog owners by; Firstly, Government further strengthening the Dangerous Dogs Act,
The LTB concludes: "We’re obviously pleased to have secured a sizeable two-page feature in a National Daily Newspaper which includes an interview with the National Health and Safety Officer along with two members, who were dog attack victims, recounting their terrifying and painful experiences, one of whom could have been killed. In the article itself, Dave Joyce is quoted: “Many sustain life-changing injuries. Many cannot continue as a postal worker out on delivery as a result of the physical and psychological impact of these attacks,” says Dave Joyce, the health, safety and environment officer at the Communication Workers Union (CWU). “They are dreadful.” “Dog attacks and dangerous dogs is a national crisis,” says Joyce. “Our workers are on the frontline.” Dave comments further in the article: "The CWU’s Joyce regrets the low number of prosecutions under the act and the low level of penalties generally imposed when cases do go to court; too many aggravated offences end in only a Community Resolution order (an informal arrangement intended for lower-level offences), he says. The article focuses on one terrible injury and the event that lead up to it, of postal worker Kersteen Hobson, pictured above right: " Early in December last year, Kirsteen Hobson was covering a colleague’s round. A postal worker for the past nine years in the Highland port of Oban, Hobson remembers the date because she was really looking forward to a Christmas night out. She was on the communal balcony of a block of flats when she saw one of the customers leaning out of his front door to greet her. “I said hi,” she says. “I bent over to get the mail, to hand over to him, and the next thing I knew there was a dog on my face – literally on my face.” Before she could react, the alsatian had bitten off a large part of her top lip. “I felt my lip come off, then I managed somehow to push the dog off me. Then it lunged at my face again and got me under the eye and on my forehead.” Hobson pushed the dog off again and fled towards the door. As she retreated, the dog bit her a third time, in the thigh. She had the wherewithal to open the door to the stairwell and shut it behind her. “Had that door not been there, I don’t think I would have been able to get the dog off me.” The owner “wasn’t able to control the dog at all”, she says."
In this Guardian G2 article part of her dog attacks ordeal is covered: "...a bull mastiff jumped over a low garden fence and attacked her as she bent down to deliver mail. “I put my arm up to protect my face and it bit me on the elbow.” Despite swift treatment, the deep and painful puncture wounds became infected, requiring two courses of antibiotics. She was also attacked twice by the same jack russell – the first time it bit her wrist, again necessitating antibiotics; the second time, she was able to fight it off. In the past six months, she has been bitten twice: once handing over a parcel in a doorway and once by a chihuahua loose in a garden. There have been “loads of near-misses”, too: “I’ve run out of gardens as fast as I could go and whacked gates shut … It just happens.” The full articles can be read by clicking on the image on the right and left above. Unionsafety has for many years reported on the CWU's campaigning on dangerous dog attacks and on the various campaign leaflets issued by the Union. Dave Joyce has been the most committed trade unionist on this issue, and his leaving to retire leaves a huge gap that needs to be filled by the CWU if it is to retain it's public record of highlighting and fighting for appropriate ad effective laws to mitigate the 'epidemic' in dog attacks in the UK. The Unionsafety E-Library contains CWU leaflets pertaining to Dangerous Dogs campaign, and material from organisations and Royal Mail that has been issued as a public awareness campaigns. Source: CWU / The Guardian / Royal Mail
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