Vol. 75/No. 13      April 4, 2011

Militant/Glova Scott

Militant supporter Ned Measel, right, selling paper at March 14 rally of teachers and other public employees in Annapolis, Maryland, against state government attacks on unions.

As they join many of these labor actions, supporters of the Militant are meeting other workers who are themselves traveling long distances to solidarity demonstrations. “We have seen we have to join other workers’ struggles,” said Buddy Howard, who is part of a union fight in Keokuk, Iowa, and has traveled to Wisconsin several times to join up with other union fighters there.

The effort to reach out with the Militant and Pathfinder books will get another boost this week as a team of socialist workers heads to Cairo, Egypt, where they will participate in the Tahrir Square Book Fair. They will meet and talk to thousands of workers, students, and others who have been part of, and affected by, the big mobilizations that overthrew the hated Hosni Mubarak dictatorship.

Hot off the press for the book fair will be a new Arabic-language edition of Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun by Jack Barnes.

Since early February, when union protests began spreading from Madison, Wisconsin, some 500 subscriptions to the Militant have been sold. We will be reporting on this running total every week, along with sales of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Jack Barnes, so keep the reports coming in.

Below distributors of the Militant relate their experiences.

DES MOINES, Iowa—Socialist workers here have been busy. On March 15 we took part in a union rally of 150 in front of the state capitol here to protest proposed legislation to weaken public workers unions and cut social services. We sold three subscriptions to the Militant and 10 single copies to public workers and others.

Early Saturday, March 19, a three-car caravan left for Madison, Wisconsin, to participate in the union rally there, joining socialists from other states. During the course of the day we sold 12 introductory subscriptions, three copies of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power, and 75 single copies of the Militant.

We hit the road Sunday morning in a caravan to Ottumwa, Iowa, where union locals and the labor council had organized a rally of more than 300 in Central Park. Five workers got subscriptions and 16 bought single copies.

—Maggie Trowe

NASHVILLE, Tennessee—Supporters of the Militant from Atlanta traveled to a March 5 rally here of more than 3,000 to protest attempts to deny teachers their collective bargaining rights. Forty copies of the paper were snapped up in a steady rain. Eight unionists signed up for subscriptions. The headline about unionists in Wisconsin sticking together struck a chord.

One new subscriber, a member of the boilermakers union, said in a follow-up phone call that he read his whole first issue. He also wanted books advertised in the Militant.

Socialist workers from Atlanta and Miami teamed up in Tallahassee, Florida, March 8 selling three subscriptions and 47 single copies to 300 union demonstrators.

—Janice Lynn

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio—A Militant sales team from Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., traveled to this working-class town March 19—another state where the government is legislating to put the burden of the capitalist crisis onto working people.

“Unemployment is high around here,” explained an auto worker who has worked at the nearby Lordstown General Motors plant for 10 years. She was one of 16 workers to pick up a copy of the Militant.

Asked about production in the plant and the “Now hiring” banner hanging from one of the plant gates, she responded, “They’re laying off.”

—Osborne Hart

LOS ANGELES—Leading up to the “March and Rally for Our Communities and Our Jobs” on March 26 here, supporters of the Militant have been expanding plant-gate sales. We sold 12 issues of the paper, and two introductory subscriptions, one renewal, and a copy of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power to members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at the union dispatch center.

—Arlene Rubinstein