A special supplement of Perspectiva Mundial on the meatpackers fight, along with the feature coverage in the Militant, will be sold in working-class communities, at plant gates, and at actions involving working people across the country.

Socialist workers in New York also plan to set up a number of literature tables at this year's Puerto Rican Day parade, which is dedicated to Puerto Rican pro-independence leader Pedro Albizu Campos and will feature opposition to the U.S. Navy's continued use of the island of Vieques for naval bombardment.

In Los Angeles, Militant supporters will get the publications and Pathfinder books into the hands of hundreds of working people attending a June 10 event to defend immigrant rights.

In Houston and elsewhere, socialist workers and Young Socialists are making projections to follow up on new subscribers. "Two young people responded to a mailing for a Socialist Workers campaign fund event, which was held at the new Pathfinder bookstore in Houston," said Dave Ferguson. "We met one of them at a grocery store two weeks earlier."

"Our plans include resuming weekly literature tables at the University of Houston and sending a team to Pan Am University in the Rio Grande Valley," Ferguson added. "We will also get back with workers locked out by Kaiser Aluminum in Gramercy, Louisiana. They were among the 15 people who bought subscriptions to the Militant at a series of demonstrations and pickets held in Houston against Maxxam Corporation, the parent company of Kaiser."  
 
Deepen new ties among fighters
The political gains from the campaign can be used to continue expanding the readership of the two publications and deepen new ties between fighting unionists, farmers, and revolutionary-minded youth.

One sales team of Militant supporters from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Los Angeles, and southern Illinois went to the picket lines of striking members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) at the McKinley mine near Gallup, New Mexico.

A previous team of socialist workers visiting the picket lines, coal portals, and going to mining communities in the region sold 70 copies of the paper and 10 subscriptions to the Militant. The mine is located on the Navajo reservation, and most of the workforce is Navajo.

"Strikers were eager to read the latest issue of the Militant that had front-page coverage of their strike. They gathered in groups to check it out," wrote Carole Lesnick from Los Angeles. "We talked about issues facing strikers and our workplaces. The discussions also took up issues concerning the reservation. Miners on the picket line bought 15 copies of the paper."

Rachele Fruit, a member of the Machinists union in Miami, said she was on strike for two weeks during the subscription drive. "One of my co-workers, a mechanic who took a lot of responsibility for the picket line, bought a Militant subscription with his first paycheck after the strike," she said. "Since then he has attended every Militant Labor Forum we have organized here."  
 
Fighting unionists subscribe
The recent subscription drive received a big boost from the rally of 8,000 UMWA members in Washington on May 17--the largest national demonstration of coal miners in many years.

Their battle to maintain guaranteed lifetime health coverage for retirees and widows reflects the stirrings of a social movement.

Rally participants purchased some 37 Militant subscriptions, 325 copies of the paper, and 5 copies of Capitalism's World Disorder. During the course of the drive 49 members of the UMWA purchased Militant subscriptions. The subs included 10 in Alabama, 8 in West Virginia, 7 in Virginia, 5 in Arizona, and several others in Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

The supporters of the sales drive met unionists engaged in other labor actions, such as the rally to support Steelworkers locked out at AK Steel. One of them renewed his subscription for one year. Members of the United Steelworkers of America bought 47 subcriptions to the Militant during the sales drive. Some of these subs included those purchased by workers locked out at Kaiser Aluminum and strikers at Titan Tire.

The sales campaign also involved reaching out to co-workers on the job. Militant supporter Al Cappe, who works on the assembly line at Ford's Ontario Truck Plant in Oakville Ontario, sold 6 Militant subscriptions and 1 copy of New International to his co-workers during the drive, as well as 1 copy of Capitalism's World Disorder and 2 copies of Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces.

"I presented the subscription offer to everyone I had discussed politics with. And I tried to meet others who wanted to talk about Cuba and Elián González, the stock market and the economy, or other issues," said Cappe. "I also got some help. At a union meeting, a longtime Militant subscriber introduced me to a worker who had read his copy of the Militant. At work, another subscriber directed me to a worker who was reading his copy of the Pathfinder title Making History. Both workers bought subscriptions."

The sales drive went over the PM goal by nearly 20 percent. This reflected the effort to reach out to workers from other countries, many of them immigrants from Latin America, who are gaining more confidence to fight for better living and working conditions.

Sales of Pathfinder books also picked up during the drive. Socialists workers in the Garment District in Manhattan sold nearly $900 of books and pamphlets in May, for example. Some $230 of this was sold during the last two weeks of May off a regular table at a busy corner where thousands of garment workers pass by.  
 
 
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