The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 75/No. 37      October 17, 2011

 
Find, join working-class fights
through ‘Militant’ campaign
(front page)
 
BY MICHEL POITRAS  
The international drive to win 2,200 new and renewed subscribers to the Militant got off to a good start during the first four days of the campaign, with a total of 172 subscriptions sold. The effort runs October 1-November 20.

Members of the Socialist Workers Party from Seattle participated in a September 29 rally of some 700 unionists and supporters in Longview, Wash., in solidarity with the ongoing fight by International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 against union busting by EGT Development.

“By the end of the evening,” wrote Mary Martin, “we had sold seven subscriptions and five copies of Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs.” One of five titles on special sale with a subscription, the book is about the successful 1934 strikes and union-organizing drive by Teamsters Local 574 that paved the way for the continent-wide rise of the CIO. (See ad on page 3.) About a dozen copies of Teamster Rebellion have been bought in Longview since the beginning of the fight.

Frank Forrestal reported from Minneapolis that 120 subscriptions to the Militant have been sold in the Red River Valley since July 29, three days before American Crystal Sugar locked out 1,300 workers there.

In Atlanta, Janice Lynn and John Benson September 27 stopped by the office of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union Local 42 to talk about the fight by sugar workers in the Upper Midwest. They found out there was a protest going on in front of the Kraft Foods Nabisco plant a few blocks away.

“We joined the protest of about 35 workers,” wrote Lynn, “and got the facts on their fight for the Militant” (see article on page 5). “We showed workers the paper’s coverage on the fight by sugar workers against the lockout and talked about my visit to their picket lines and the solidarity they are winning. A number of workers had heard about it.”

“We sold two subscriptions,” added Lynn, “one to a truck driver who will be affected by the outsourcing, and another to one of the local’s business agents. A few workers took back copies and subscription blanks to send in, as they had no cash on them. They thanked us for supporting their fight.”

From New York, Ruth Robinett wrote that four subscriptions to the Militant and 55 single copies were sold over three visits to the growing protest of youth and unemployed workers near Wall Street in downtown Manhattan.

Supporters of the Militant in Montreal, wrote John Steele, sold five subscriptions “going door to door in working-class neighborhoods over the weekend. We also sold four French-language copies of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes.”

Militant supporters in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco have raised their quotas, bringing the overall regional pledges to 2,165 and the campaign closer to its projected goal.

Send your weekly reports, experiences and comments on selling the Militant to workers, farmers and students by 8:00 a.m., Tuesday morning, EDT.
 
 
Related articles:
'Militant' Subscription Drive October 1 to November 20 (chart).  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home