Colin Blackburn <[email hidden]> wrote in message
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> It is now compulsory I think. A hard fought struggle by the union to ensure their members'
> safety without actually checking whether it is safer or not.Er, almost but not quite,
And there was me thinking that this would preced a correction of facts. Oh well.
Quoted message said:from what I have read on this it seems more like a hard fought struggle by car-centric union
officials who have (ab)used their power in order to impose polystyrene hats on cycling postmen,
largely against their cycling members wishes.Colin
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Hi there,
I accept that it may be the case that the union officials who pushed this though may have had to
fight for the necessary funding. They may even have acted in good faith, even if they were ill
informed, and that there may well have been no desire to work against the greater good of cyclists.
However, I think it is important to make it clear that, as far as I understand it, the pressure to
have helmets provided was NOT coming from cycling postmen themselves.
The stuff I came across, including union minutes and so on, certainly gave the impression that this
was a case of officials with a very 'motorists eye view' of 'road safety' using their position to
forward the cause of the pro helmet lobby.
I wonder just how much consultation was undertaken with the cycling postmen themselves in order to
allow the union to discover what the members wanted 'their' union to do? After all, if many postmen
are not now wearing their helmets it seems they would have hardly asked for 'their' union to make
their use compulsory under thread of dismissal! (And aren't unions supposed to represent the will of
their members?).
I wonder whether the membership were balloted? And how much effort did the union make to get a range
of views and evidence on the issue? Are perchance, those who though this was a good idea just
motorists with typical motorists views who also happened to be PO union officials? I understand that
many cycling postmen tried to raise objections with their union about was was being done in their
name but these voices of dissent were ignored.
I also wonder how many 'pedestrian postmen' and 'driving postmen' have being killed or injured in
recent years and what action does the union intends to take about reducing these casualties...