Belarusian postmen protest against compulsory subscription to state-run press
- 3.06.2010, 16:02
Postmen of the village Padrechcha (Kirau district, Maholou region) announced their resignation
They express their protests against subscription plan to state-run newspapers. The postmen cannot fulfill the plan, made by their chiefs, because people don’t want to subscribe to the press, Radio Svaboda reports.
Vyachaslau Sheleh, an activist of the Belarusian Christian Democracy from Kirau district, told about the position of the postmen. According to him, labour contracts of three postmen expired and they said they wanted to resign. The direction stands against dismissal:
”a chief tore our resignation letters. She said: ‘Calm down and go on working. I don’t want to know anything. I didn’t see your letters.’ There are no people to work. Who will work in the village? Just a few people live there. People understand this is slavery. They will be told about prices and become slaves,” Vyachaslau Sheleh explains.
As the activist says, postmen are not satisfied with working conditions and direction’s order to make people subscribe to state-run newspapers. One of the angry postmen confirmed this in a telephone conversation:
“We understand that salary won’t be increased and the subscription plan won’t be reduced. Even if two or three people refuse to work, we will have to subscribe to these papers ourselves. We have about 40 copies of “Sovetskaya Belorussia”, 8 “Belorusskaya Niva” in the post office. “Sovetskaya Belorussia” costs 36 thousand. What does a 70-year-old woman need the paper for? We used to convince people, but now…” a postman told.
The postal service department of Kirau district finds excuses:
“Population centers are in decline. People haven’t become to live better. Some people went away, some began to seek for other variants to earn. We have a subscription plan, this is true. We plan to get income from this, and it depends on the number of sold copies. These are state-run newspapers and the state wants people to receive as much information as possible.”
As it was found out, residents of Padrechcha must subscribe to 60 copies of local paper “Kirovets” in addition to 40 copies of “Sovetskaya Belorussia”, 8 copies of “Belorusskaya Niva”.