Vol. 72/No. 18      May 5, 2008

Supporters in Chicago, Los Angeles, Twin Cities, Australia, and Canada raised their fund quotas. This has helped to close the gap between pledges and the goal.

The drive is still 10 percent behind schedule. Attention to catching up is needed everywhere readers have adopted a quota.

Over the next couple of weeks, fund events are planned in a number of cities. Please send in notes on how the work is going in your area as well as reports or photos from fund meetings. Below is an account of the fund-raising meeting in Los Angeles on April 19.
 

BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN  
LOS ANGELES—After a special forum for the Militant Fund, supporters in Los Angeles decided to raise their goal again this week, to $9,500. Ernie Mailhot, a long-time union activist who is the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, was the featured speaker at the program.

Mailhot discussed the tightening squeeze on working people with the spreading capitalist economic crisis. He pointed to the contract fight at the Dakota Premium meatpacking plant in South St. Paul, Minnesota, as an example of the increased resistance by workers in the United States, documented and undocumented.

Pedro Albarran, a supporter of the Militant newspaper and a Los Angeles meat packer, made an appeal for people to contribute to the fund. He explained that he has been an activist on the job and in the union for the 14 years he has been working at his plant. “But the Militant has transformed me,” he said. “I was a fighter, but for myself and for my union. Now I am thinking much more broadly, and learning about the world. I understand how things are connected, I am constantly learning more. We all need to contribute money to keep the Militant going and to get it out to more workers.”

Albarran read a message from Erendira Valadez, a sewing machine operator who has been a subscriber for the last year. Her message stressed the importance of the Militant’s factual reporting of what is going on in the lives of workers. The meeting collected $1,988.

$100,000 'Militant' fund drive: Week 4 of 8