BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
The campaign to expand the long-term readership of the
Militant and Perspectiva Mundial has now gained momentum,
with 138 subscribers renewing their subscriptions over the
past two weeks. Supporters of the socialist press have
decided to extend the drive for two weeks until August 18 to
take advantage of this momentum. The campaign had initially
stalled after being launched just a few days before the
Active Workers Conference in Pittsburgh. Several Militant
supporters have pointed out that it would have been better to
start the drive right after the Pittsburgh meeting, which
politically armed and gave a boost to the socialist workers
who took part in it.
"I'm glad we're extending the subscription renewal campaign," said Sylvie Charbin, a member of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) from Toronto. "We got off to a slow start and didn't get back to everybody. Now we can get back to co-workers we hadn't been able to reach yet." Supporters in Toronto have already gone over their Militant goal by 56 percent. "We decided to prioritize the campaign and treated it like the campaign we organized last spring to win new subscribers," Charbin added. "We set up phone calling and spent lots of time on the telephone in political discussion that paid off."
"We called up one worker from Bosnia whom we met going door to door who had bought an introductory subscription last spring. He thought the Militant was an honest paper, but utopian and idealistic in its coverage of Yugoslavia. He thought NATO intervention brought peace to the Balkans. We explained why we thought the imperialist occupation force has deepened the crisis there and discussed the disintegration of the Stalinist regimes in Europe and around the world.
"We had a hard time setting up an appointment with him since he works second shift, but we finally met with him and had a discussion for two hours. He bought the Marxist magazine New International no. 10, which features the article "Imperialism's march toward fascism and war," as he renewed his subscription to the Militant. He also expressed interest in attending the next Militant Labor Forum we organize at the Pathfinder Bookstore in Toronto," she stated. "It took work, persistence, and political discussions to get him to renew his subscription. And we always start out wanting to know if subscribers received their paper regularly and what they liked about it."
Ruth Robinett, a rail worker at Amtrak and Socialist Workers candidate for attorney general in New York, explained that "what the Militant has been covering around the recent strikes by workers is really being followed closely by some people where I work. One afternoon I stayed after work with Ellie Garcia, a supporter of the campaign, talking with co- workers at Penn Station, selling the Militant and getting petitions signed to help get Socialist Workers candidates on the ballot in New York state. Four of the five co-workers who renewed their subscriptions are in the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWE) who we met when they were preparing to walk off the job last year. We also got 37 signatures for our petitioning drive."
Three workers at Pemco, a United Auto Workers-organized plant in Birmingham, Alabama, renewed their subscriptions this past week. "Some of the renewals are long-term readers of the Militant who have not always kept up their subscriptions," said Susan LaMont, a steelworker in Alabama. "One of my co-workers who renewed his subscription has watched what has been happening in the union movement and wants to follow it more. The General Motors strike was the biggest thing he wanted to know about."
Mary Martin, a member of the IAM at Northwest Airlines in Washington, D.C., said, " We sold a Militant renewal at the August 4 union meeting to discuss the rejection of the contract." Martin reported that supporters of the Militant there have gone over their goal by 33 percent, getting 12 people to renew their subscriptions. Some are co-workers; others are longtime supporters of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial who had not been recently active in politics. "They are coming back around politics in response to the determination we're seeing today among working people to fight against the bosses' demands for concessions."