BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
Supporters of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial are
preparing to launch an eight-week campaign to sign up new
readers to the socialist press. The drive begins September 12
and ends November 4 and will also include selling copies of the
Marxist magazine New International. The goals for the campaign
will be printed in the next issue of the Militant.
Participants in the sales drive plan to reach out to working-class fighters and respond to struggles breaking out across the United States, Canada, Sweden, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the world. Socialist workers, members of the Young Socialists, and other supporters of the campaign will participate in activities over the Labor Day weekend to warm up for the sales drive.
Samantha Kern and Alaric Dirmeyer, are two members of the Young Socialists in San Francisco who have joined sales teams to build the September 5-6 regional conference there. Dirmeyer said over the past week they have sold more than 90 copies of the Militant while building the event.
"We had teams setting up literature tables at City College here, Mills College in Oakland, and UCLA at Berkeley," said Dirmeyer. "We plan to go to San Jose later. At City College of San Francisco 650 members of Service Employees International Union Local 790 are waging a strike after going 14 months without a contract. We joined their pickets which are up from 7:00 a.m. until evening time."
"We sold a Militant subscription to a student who wants to find out more about the U.S. bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan," said Kern, who had just come back from selling socialist literature at Mills college. "Many students were impressed that the articles in the Militant were written by workers and students. We sold three copies of the Militant, two subscriptions, a copy of the Communist Manifesto and a copy of Women's Evolution. One of the subscriptions was bought by a construction worker who stopped by on his break. He asked for books by communist leader Karl Marx and when we showed him the Communist Manifesto he said, `That's perfect.'"
The two YS members said some of the other activities they were planning included a preconference dinner for people interested in learning more about the conference.
"I sold a subscription to the Militant, a copy of New International no. 4 and a copy of the pamphlet Farmers Face the Crisis of the 1990s to a farmer from a small town in Georgia," said Ardy Blandford, who participated in the 31st Annual Meeting of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in Epps, Alabama.
Ved Dookhun, another Militant supporter at the farmers meeting said, "Many farmers were interested in learning more about the struggle for a workers and farmers government, which was reflected in our selling four copies of NI no. 4 and three copies of the Pathfinder pamphlet Farmers Face the Crisis of the 1990s. We also sold eight other Pathfinder titles and 12 Militants." Below we are printing excerpts from results of sales in Australia.
SYDNEY, Australia - We sold 45 copies of the Militant last week, including 25 on the job (plus five back issues), at plant gates, and on picket lines. This includes 10 copies at four plants where supporters of the Militant work, and six copies at a plant gate sale at the CTAL wharf at port Botany.
We sold ten copies during two visits to the picket lines at the David's grocery store depot at Blacktown. Workers there ended an eight-week strike August 28 after they won the reinstatement of 54 workers sacked for "gross misconduct" on the picket line. We went to a solidarity rally on the picket line that day along with wharfies from Newcastle, Sydney, and Wollogong, The David's workers who are members of the National Union of Workers, don't have a contract yet, but the company's union-busting drive has taken a blow. We also sold four copies and a subscription to the Militant at a picket line by workers at Telstra, the main communications company, who were on a 48- hour protest strike over concessions Telstra is demanding in current contract negotiations.
We will also send a team to far west of New South Wales, as part of the Communist League election campaign, to participate in a ceremony to hand the title of a national park area back to the traditional Aboriginal owners. This is the culmination of a 15-year fight for land rights.