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Vol. 77/No. 32      September 9, 2013

 
‘Important there’s a paper that
supports struggles of workers’
 
BY JOHN STUDER
Across the U.S. and in a number of other countries around the world, supporters of the Militant and campaigners for candidates of the Socialist Workers Party and sister Communist Leagues are knocking on workers’ doors, selling introductory subscriptions and winning long-term renewals.

“If you have a group of workers together you have something to stand on. By yourself you are just a target,” retired worker Donald Lewellen told Clay Dennison in Burlington, Wash., while they were discussing the fight by berry pickers at Sakuma Brothers Farms in the area, most of whom are immigrants from Mexico.

“Not only Sakuma Farms, but anywhere there are immigrant workers it seems like they just use up their talents,” said Lewellen, who previously worked in a chicken plant, as he signed up for a subscription. “Sakuma Farms is trying to cut corners and take food off the workers’ table.”

“We have been visiting subscribers whose subscriptions have expired or are about to expire,” Militant supporter Olöf Andra Proppé wrote from London. “We go door to door in the same areas to sell new subscriptions. Over the past week, five subscribers have renewed and 10 new subscriptions have been sold.”

“People get so absorbed in their own daily struggles to survive,” Adamo Giraldo told John Benson, SWP candidate for mayor of Atlanta, when he and campaign supporters knocked on his door in Norcross, Ga., Aug. 17. “So it’s important there’s a paper that explains what’s happening in the world and supports struggles of working people.”

Giraldo, who went back to school to try and pick up a trade after being laid off, renewed his subscription and purchased a copy of The Cuban Five: Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should Be Free, one of nine books offered at special reduced prices with a subscription (see ad on this page).

“I would like to let you know that I am a big fan of your newsweekly, the Militant,” a worker behind bars in San Diego wrote Aug. 19. “There is not much to look forward to in prison and I always anxiously await your paper.”

In recent years the number of subscribers has steadily grown in U.S. prisons, where the workers’ paper gets passed around and discussed. To help workers behind bars receive the socialist press at the reduced price of $6 for six months, or in some cases free of charge, send a check or money order to the Militant address listed on page 2, earmarked “Prisoners Fund.”

To get or renew your subscription — or to join efforts to expand the readership of the working-class press — contact distributors in your area (listed on page 10) or the Militant at (212) 244-4899 or themilitant@mac.com.

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