The international subscription drive is picking up steam in a number of areas where partisans of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial are taking the two publications out in workers districts, talking politics on the job with co-workers, getting to protest actions and to workers on picket lines, and selling at plant gates. A glance at the chart shows that while we've sold 174 subscriptions to the Militant, 110 PM subscriptions and 226 pamphlets, we're slipping behind schedule. Some areas like Los Angeles report that a number of their subs not recorded on this week's chart are in the mail to the Militant Business Office.
Partisans of the two publications in Miami are setting an example by planning a concentrated week of sales activities May 5-12 as part of a local target week to get on track.
Socialist workers in the city recently sent a sales team to Stuart, Florida, where residents organized protests against the killing by the cops of Stacey Scales, a 32-year-old Black man. They sold five copies of the Militant, a copy of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning pamphlet, and a one-year Militant subscription to a woman in the NAACP who has been involved in organizing protests against the cop violence.
Actions by working people against police brutality and racist attacks are happening in a number of cities across the United States. Those involved in these protests are interested in the Militant and other communist literature. In Pittsburgh, Frank Forrestal, a coal miner there, said, "One of the highlights of our sales last week was at State College in central Pennsylvania where a fight led by Black students against racism has broken out at Pennsylvania State University. We sent two teams there, which sold two Militant subscriptions, 30 papers, and some $80 worth of Pathfinder literature."
Brian Williams from New York reports, "This past weekend we set up a literature table in the Bronx across the street from the new mural honoring Amadou Diallo, who was slain in a hail of 41 bullets by New York cops. Many people came by to view the mural and take pictures through the course of the day, given the controversy with the police who demanded the picture on the mural of four cops with Klan hoods be removed. Interest was quite high in the Militant articles on the fight against police brutality in Cincinnati and Florida. We sold two subscriptions to the Militant and one to PM there."
Sales on the job and at plant gates
"A meat packer at the Swift plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, bought a subscription to the Militant from a socialist co-worker after seeing the paper being sold at the plant gate," wrote Edwin Fruit from Des Moines, Iowa. Fruit said he visited the home of one of his co-workers at the IBP packing plant where he works and talked for an hour about a "variety of issues, from the state of the trade unions to the Cuban Revolution. He bought a copy of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning and the new Pathfinder book Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs. We also met one co-worker at his home while going door-to-door who already had a subscription blank that was given to him at work. It was filled out and he bought the PM subscription on the spot."
Campaigners for the Militant and PM in Chicago went back to the plant gate at Rochelle Foods in Illinois after the meat packers there won their strike. In two days of sales at the factory and going door-to-door in the community, they sold 12 copies of Perspectiva Mundial, 5 Militants, 2 PM subscriptions, and 2 copies of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning in Spanish.
Two socialist workers in Detroit drove to Toledo, Ohio, to sell the Militant at the factory gate of the Jeep assembly plant, which is being replaced by a new facility on the other side of town. Many jobs will be cut because the bosses at Chrysler announced that they will need about 1,000 fewer workers than anticipated.
"We met a supporter of the Militant at the old plant, and talked to workers leaving the factory at two different gates and sold 16 papers," said Ilona Gersh, an auto worker. "One young worker appreciated the truthful coverage in the Militant of the protests against police brutality in Cincinnati. He said he had some friends there who had participated in the demonstrations. I called him back and he said he had decided to buy an introductory subscription. He told me he liked the Militant's coverage of union struggles. 'I wish the union would do something about these layoffs,' he said."
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BY STU SINGER
WASHINGTON--Two of us went to Delaware, in the area where there are a number of poultry plants, to sell the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial to workers there. We visited a small Latino store in Georgetown where the owner took a placement of two copies of the Spanish edition of Playa Girón/Bay Pigs we had with us and also ordered $233 worth of books from Pathfinder. A young Mexican immigrant who works in the store bought a PM subscription.
We sold a few copies of PM at the plant gate of the Mountaire plant in Selbyville. One worker who bought a Militant subscription the last time we were there came over to say how much he likes the paper. He said he just got the issues with coverage on protests in Cincinnati.
Back at work at the Smithfield packing plant outside Washington, we sold a PM subscription and the English and a Spanish versions of The Transformation of Learning to a co-worker. Each weekend of the sales drive so far we have gone to visit a co-worker at home to discuss politics with them and their families, and then have gone selling door-to-door in the neighborhood.
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BY NAN BAILEY
Los Angeles--We have sold 18 subscriptions to the Militant and 17 to Perspectiva Mundial so far. Seven strikers at Hollander Home Fashions near Los Angeles have bought subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial. The PM's coverage of both this strike and of the Cuban Revolution attracted the interest of two co-workers in a local garment factory who also subscribed to the magazine.
We also sold nine Militant subscriptions and one PM subscription at the Los Angeles Times Book Fair April 28-29, which was held on the UCLA campus. Pathfinder has been an annual participant in the fair since it began in 1996. People who attended the gathering purchased 17 copies of Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas.
About 150 people participated in an April 19 event held at California State University in Los Angeles to celebrate the anniversary of the Cuban victory at the Bay of Pigs. We sold two Militant subscriptions, one to Perspectiva Mundial, and four copies of Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs at the meeting.
Subscriptions have regularly been sold at the weekly Militant Labor Forum here. Speakers and participants in the two forums that have taken place since the opening of the circulation campaign have purchased two subscriptions to the Militant and two PM subscriptions.