Assaults on Emergency Workers Bill must be widened

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Despite welcoming Parliamentary moves to stiffen penalties on those who assault emergency service workers, the CWU is arguing that the scope of new legislation presently going through Westminster should be widened to include any worker carrying out an important public service – including postal workers and telecoms engineers.

The demand follows the unanimous support of CWU Annual Conference for a demand that ALL utilities workers should be covered by the proposed new law that currently only specifically applies to police officers, fire-fighters, paramedics, nurses, doctors and ambulance crews.

Proposing the widening of the Bill’s remit on behalf of the North East Regional Health & Safety Forum, Tony Pedel told Conference: “The passing of this Bill will put an assault on an emergency worker on a par with a hate crime…increasing the maximum sentence from six to 13 months.

“While the debate in Parliament will focus on emergency workers it will also send out a strong message on behalf of other public service workers – including those in the industries that our members work in – that attacks are absolutely not acceptable and will not be tolerated any more.

“We’d like utility workers like BT and Royal Mail employees to be included…and believe the provisions in the Bill allow for this comparison – especially with regards to BT engineers who are the primary leads in facilitating calls to the emergency services.”