THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
At the beginning of July 2023, the board of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) sent an Appeal to the President of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, drawing attention to the fact that mass complaints about problems with the postal delivery of printed publications and the dismissal of mail carriers have begun to arrive.
The NUJU has opened a postal hotline, and as of the end of September, more than 1,000 inquiries from subscribers and publishers, mail carriers, and other workers had been received from all regions. We forward all these appeals to representatives of Ukrposhta for consideration, and we hope to receive feedback; we also hope that this will be a tool for improving the situation.
And the fact that the situation is critical is really evidenced by mass complaints, among which there are written requests from hundreds of residents of settlements where stationary post offices are closed and mobile post offices do not work properly.
There are seven key complaints about the work of Ukrposhta. These are the mass closing of branches, lack of staff due to the dismissal of mail carriers, lack of financial responsibility for delivery disruptions, the weak interest of mail carriers in subscriptions, non-compliance with delivery schedules, complaints about the work of mobile branches, and high delivery rates.
We are sincerely grateful to selfless mail carriers and postal workers who are among the first to start working in the liberated territory or the front-line towns and villages. At the same time, the NUJU hotline receives complaints from editors about the low-quality work of Ukrposhta and from mail carriers who were proud of them until recently, for example, in the Kharkiv Region. These people distributed pensions at gunpoint, and since July 1, they have been released and remained on the street. I think it is possible to revise the question of the reduction of postal workers so that people who were heroes a year ago remain in the system.
Director General of Ukrposhta Ihor Smilianskyi says that the contract provides for appeals against the actions of postal workers in case of dissatisfaction with their work. However, the editors note that this is a complex and lengthy procedure. In the appeals of the editors, there is a request to identify those responsible for the quality delivery of periodicals at the level, perhaps, of the deputy director general, heads of departments of the General and regional directorates.
It can be a certain working group – an effective team, to which requests regarding the quality of delivery of subscription newspapers can be sent and which will promptly consider and resolve these requests.
Unfortunately, now the digital channels, hotline, and online service of Ukrposhta register complaints, but without a quick response option. Editors do not see who they can contact with certainty to solve the problem; if bundles of newspapers are lost, the publication does not reach the villages of the front-line regions.
When we talk about tariffs, we propose and approve the corresponding statement of Ihor Smilianskyi about the intention to record that the tariffs for 2024 will not be revised during the year. The editor must be sure that the tariff for the second half of 2024 will be the same as for the first half.
We also propose to record in a memorandum between the NUJU, trade unions, and Ukrposhta that when determining the tariff policy of Ukrposhta for 2025, representatives of the NUJU will be involved in the process. Or at least we should be informed at least a few weeks before the start of the subscription campaign regarding the tariffs set by Ukrposhta.
For the NUJU, helping our colleagues revive print publications in the de-occupied and front-line territories is among the priorities. We can already say that thanks to the direct support of the Union and international partners, thirty numbers of revived local media were published. The most recent example is the Holos Huliaipillia newspaper from the Zaporizhzhia Region.
But we would like there to be a global state policy to support informing the population so that our colleagues count not only on their own efforts and international donors but also on attention within the country.
The NUJU emphasizes that today, Ukrainian media, more than ever before, need state support. Therefore, we initiate an appeal to the President of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine with a call for the immediate development and implementation of a state policy of support for the Ukrainian press based on the interests of information security and the reality of resistance to the propaganda attacks of the occupiers. At the same time, we suggest placing a particular emphasis on supporting the median from the de-occupied and front-line territories.
We call on government officials to implement a comprehensive program of support for Ukrainian media, which would take into account the issues of distribution and postal delivery of subscription periodicals, provision of newsprint, and printing. That is, we ask you to take into account all the components that ensure the functioning of the Ukrainian press so that we ensure the right of Ukrainians to access information. Moreover, the press remains the only source of information in many areas where the infrastructure has been destroyed.
Sergiy Tomilenko, NUJU President
(From a speech at All-Ukrainian editors’ meeting dated September 27, 2023)
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