This response is becoming more common across the United States and other countries as Militant supporters make progress in the seven-week effort to increase the paper’s long-term readership.

New and repeat readers are signing up, particularly in the coalfields. Many say they have recently gotten a new appreciation for the Militant’s reports on union organizing and other struggles.

“Samuel Johnson, president of the United Mine Workers local at the McKinley mine in Window Rock, Arizona, told Alyson Kennedy last week that he wasn’t so sure about the Militant earlier,” said Tamar Rosenfeld from Salt Lake City, who visited the area February 16. “But he got a subscription recently and said he is convinced it’s a good paper. He said he read the column about sales of the paper at the McKinley mine a couple of weeks ago and noticed that 41 miners bought copies but only four subscribed. ‘We have to get those numbers up,’ he said.”

Twelve miners, all of them Navajo, subscribed there and among members of Operating Engineers Local 953 in nearby Farmington, New Mexico.

The response is strong in the Midwest too, especially among meat packers.

“Several of us visited Norfolk, Nebraska, last weekend,” wrote Mary Martin from Des Moines, Iowa. “We sold the Militant at the afternoon shift on Friday, February 17, at the gate of Tyson Fresh Meats here. Thirty-four workers bought the paper. It was the last shift working, since Tyson closed the plant that night. Workers said their supervisors informed them of the closure two days earlier. Tyson also shut down another plant in West Point, Nebraska. To date workers have been told nothing about compensation.”

Some 300 Somali and other workers at the Norfolk plant had walked out and organized other protests to demand restoration of prayer breaks and won that in the last union contract in December.

“The next two days we had six house meetings with former Tyson and other workers, including current and former subscribers,” Martin said. “We sold three subs and got two endorsements for the Militant Fighting Fund. One of the highlights of the meeting was talking with Dina Tovar, 20, who had been interviewed by the Militant around the last union contract a few weeks ago. ‘We do all the work, we make everything, and they put us on the street,’ she said, as she renewed her subscription.”

“Another high point was on the way back to Des Moines. At a gas station we noticed a Latina woman with a license plate on her car that said WONG. I introduced myself and it turned out she is from a Mexican-Chinese family and proud of her roots. As soon as I showed her the new Pathfinder book, Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution, she bought it, along with the Militant.”

Last week, 191 people subscribed—104 renewals and 87 introductory subs. It was the best single week of the effort. For the remainder of the campaign, an average of 205 subs are needed per week to meet the overall quota, a slight increase in pace.

Distributors in two new areas—Tampa and Detroit—are now listed on the chart.

Join the effort! Order your bundle or contact distributors nearest you to take part in teams they organize (see directory).
 
Click here to see the 'Militant' Sub Renewal Campaign chart  
 
 
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