At the midpoint of the international sales drive, socialist workers and young socialists have sold 456 Militant subscriptions, 195 PM subscriptions and 225 copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution by Jack Barnes. Sales need to be stepped up. It is a perfect complement to a subscription, offering a working-class answer to the bosses' assaults on workers' rights and living standards.

Participants in the campaign can use the target week to organize special sales to areas where textile mills and meatpacking plants are located and in the coalfields. Workers in these areas and elsewhere would be interested in reading the Militant and PM coverage of labor struggles, like the recent victory by 25,000 current and former poultry workers who will be receiving some $10 million in back pay for the unpaid time used in putting on protective gear to perform their jobs.

The Militant has been well received in places where workers are involved in labor battles and other social struggles. Susan LaMont from Birmingham said she and other supporters traveled to West Virginia this past weekend, where a Black Lung conference was taking place, and sold three Militant subscriptions. Consistent sales on the job to co-workers and at plant gates are also starting to net results. In some places socialists are getting help from co-workers who point out others in their workplace who may be interested in subscribing to the Militant or PM.

"I sold a PM subscription to a Mexican co-worker who I haven't had much political discussion with in the past," reports Don Mackle, a meat packer in Detroit. "Another co-worker told me about him, explaining that during political discussions taking place on the boning line where they both work, this co-worker who is very quiet, seems to come down on the right side of most questions. So when I caught up with him in the parking lot after work one day and showed him the PM he decided to try a subscription."

Militant supporters from New York teamed up to visit two union halls in Connecticut where carpenters were voting on a new contract, reports Dan Fein from the New York Garment District. "The Carpenters Union had been on strike throughout the state since May 1 and had gathered in three locations to discuss and vote on the new contract offer by the bosses," he said. "We sold one subscription to the Militant and two copies of the paper to union members inside the union hall in Norwalk. And later we sold four subscriptions to unionists waiting for their afternoon meeting in Hartford to begin."

Cecelia Moriarity from Seattle said partisans of two publications in that city traveled to Toppenish, Washington, to sell the socialist press at the Washington Beef plant gate where workers had lost a hard fought strike. "We sold several copies of the Militant to meat packers and later that day we met three of the strike leaders who were subsequently fired, but won unemployment benefits. We had dinner with them and each bought a copy of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution," she said.

Moriarity said some Indians from the Yakima Nation also stopped by while they were selling the paper at the meatpacking plant and purchased a Militant subscription.

Arlene Rubenstein in Atlanta said she and others sold three copies of the Militant and six copies of PM at a nearby Excel processing plant. "Several workers told us they would consider subscribing after they read an issue and we plan on getting back there this week," she added. "We want to start selling at this plant every week."

Best week yet for sales in Des Moines

BY PETE SEIDMAN  
DES MOINES, Iowa--This past week we sold five subscriptions in the working-class district where the Pathfinder bookstore is located and three subscriptions in Perry, Iowa, where hundreds of co-workers at the nearby giant IBP packinghouse live. It was our highest one-week total yet!

One new Militant subscriber is a former Titan Tire striker who told us he'd seen the paper on the picket line and at their monthly union meetings during the strike and really appreciated it. He asked his wife to add an extra $2 to the check she was writing for the subscription as a contribution to the Militant fund drive.

When Militant campaigners knocked on one door and explained a little about the paper, the person who answered interrupted when we mentioned the paper covers fights against police brutality and racism. "Wait just a second," he said. Then a man in a wheelchair came to the door and invited us to come inside their home. He told us how just a few days earlier the cops had come into his home, brutally beaten him, and jailed him overnight. They wouldn't let him have access to toilet facilities--and subjected him to other humiliations.

After a discussion on how this brutality is part of the broader fight by workers to stand up to assaults by the ruling rich, the man bought a subscription and said he looked forward to coming down to one of the Militant Labor Forums at the bookstore, which is only a few blocks from his home.

This past weekend a sales team went to Perry, Iowa, where they sold one Militant subscription at an apartment after talking with three Sudanese co-workers from IBP. The team also sold two PM subscriptions, one to a co-worker at IBP who is from Mexico and the other to a worker from Guatemala who also bought the Spanish edition of Ernesto Che Guevara's Socialism and Man in Cuba.

We also learned about the impact the Militant has on workers behind bars during a visit to a trailer park near the IBP plant in Waterloo, Iowa, the week before. A woman was considering buying a subscription to the Militant when another person in the house told her what a good paper it was. "I read it while I was in prison," he told her. She asked, "Would you recommend it?" He answered, "Definitely." That cinched the subscription sale. She also purchased a copy of Malcolm X Talks to Young People.

Sales at Haitian Festival in Brooklyn

BY SARAH KATZ  
BROOKLYN, New York--Militant supporters spread out across the city as part of the effort to win new readers to the socialist press and to build our upcoming Militant Fund event, "From Haiti to the United States: Prospects for Building an International Socialist Movement of Working People and Youth." After setting up a literature table in the Haitian community near Brooklyn College, someone told us to move the table several blocks up the street to a Haitian festival. French language titles from Pathfinder then flew off the table.

We sold two copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, The Changing Face of U.S. Politics, and several different issues of the Marxist magazine Nouvelle Internationale. A young Haitian guy who knew Pathfinder books, but hadn't seen us in a while, bought the new pamphlet of speeches by Thomas Sankara in French. He also decided to buy Capitalism's World Disorder and the issue of Nouvelle Internationale featuring the article "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War." In addition to selling more than $130 worth of books, we sold one Militant subscription and 18 copies of the paper. We are now getting ready for the Haitian Day Parade this weekend.

At another table set up at a regular spot in the workers district here two new subscribers came by the table to join the sales effort. One of them pledged $20 to the Militant Fund. At that table supporters sold one Militant subscription, a copy of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, and $40 worth of literature.

Socialists visit poultry workers

BY JANICE LYNN  
WASHINGTON--Supporters of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial from Washington and Philadelphia traveled to Georgetown, Delaware, on the Delmarva peninsula May 18. The team visited homes at a trailer park near the Perdue plant to talk to poultry workers and others about the recent victory won by Perdue chicken catchers who had just ratified their first union contract. The sales team also talked about the Perdue poultry workers who had just won a class action lawsuit granting back pay for some of the time it takes to put on and take off the protective clothing needed to perform their jobs.

Many workers had heard of these developments and were interested in some of the other struggles by workers fighting for a union and better wages and working conditions around the world that are covered in the socialist publications. A few had not heard of the settlement and were eager to learn about it.

We met workers from Guatemala, Mexico, and Haiti as well as Black workers. Most were poultry workers at the Perdue, Allens, or Mountaire plants in the area. One was a chicken catcher who worked for Tyson. Another worked at the Vlasic Foods plant, organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, told us about some of the issues workers there were concerned with.

The team sold 14 copies of the PM and one subscription as well as two Militant subscriptions and three copies of the newsweekly. One Perdue worker, originally from Haiti, bought the French edition of the pamphlet The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning, along with a subscription to the Militant. He was eager to read about upcoming coverage in the paper of the recent conference held in Haiti.  
 
 
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