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Vol. 79/No. 17      May 11, 2015

 
(front page)
‘Militant’:Fighting tool
for working class today

 
BY EMMA JOHNSON
As labor battles and social protests spread today the Militant is an irreplaceable tool, both as a voice for getting the truth out about our struggles and a place to discuss how best to build the revolutionary working-class movement.

What causes police brutality — is it a few “rotten apples” or an integral part of capitalist rule? How can we unify the working class and rebuild our unions into fighting instruments? These are critical questions for workers. This is why we’re getting a broad response among working people to the Militant’s seven-week international campaign to win 2,000 new and renewing subscribers along with raising $115,000 for the Militant Fighting Fund by June 2.

And why many take advantage of the offer to buy any Pathfinder book or New International at half price with their subscription.

“The Militant has been with us from the very beginning and it has reported the truth about our fight,” Familias Unidas President Ramón Torres told participants at one of two events supporting the farmworkers fight for a contract at Sakuma Brothers Farms in Burlington, Washington.

On April 25, supporters from Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York traveled to Baltimore to join in protests against the cop killing of Freddie Gray. During the day they signed up 10 new readers participating in the actions and going door to door.

Workers at the April 24 afternoon shift change at the Ford plant gate in Chicago were interested in the paper’s coverage of labor and social struggles. United Auto Workers members’ contracts at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler expire in September. Six signed up for subscriptions and 21 bought single copies.

On April 25 supporters from Atlanta took the Militant door to door in Douglasville, Georgia, a city of 30,000 people 20 miles west of Atlanta. Three days earlier a hydrogen sulfide leak at the Asphalt Refining and Technology Company there killed one worker and injured three. Seven people signed up for subscriptions and two bought copies of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power.

“We smell that gas a lot,” bakery worker Maggie Lightfoot, 28, told Militant supporters at her doorstep. “They shouldn’t have that refinery right where residents live.”

Exposure to high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide can quickly lead to death. The worker who died was sprayed in the face by the gas and died from asphyxiation after inhaling it.

Volunteers in Los Angeles and Oakland participated in the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books April 18-19, selling 52 subscriptions. The new readers also picked up 86 books at half price. Another 36 books were sold at full price.

“Based on the tremendous response we have gotten so far, we raised our goals,” Bill Arth reported April 27. “Just today five strikers at the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach signed up when we joined their picket line.”

New subscribers in Oakland gave nearly $100 to the Militant Fighting Fund. A long-term subscriber in Wisconsin made a first-time contribution of $100. A retired seaman in Australia who gets the Militant around to his friends sent in $50. The fund helps make it possible for the Militant to offer the special introductory subscription of $5 for 12 weeks to new readers.

On April 26 Michel Prairie and Philippe Tessier from Montreal drove 30 miles south to Mont-Saint-Grégoire, a town of 3,000, to visit Mario Giugovaz, 79, a working farmer originally from Croatia. He recently sent in a two-year renewal and asked if they could come out and get his contribution to the Militant Fighting Fund.

“When I was young I listened on shortwave radio to programs from Dakar, Senegal, and the United States,” he said. “I was struck by how the same facts would be explained differently according to the interests of each country. I like the Militant’s point of view.”

Giugovaz got five books, among them the French-language editions of New International nos. 12 and 13 and Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs.

Join in winning new readers to the socialist newsweekly and please send a generous contribution to the fund. Contact a distributor listed on page 8.
 
 
Related articles:
Sign up 2,000 subscribers April 11 – June 2 (week 2)
Militant Fighting Fund April 11 – June 2 (week 2)
 
 
 
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