The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 77/No. 43      December 2, 2013

 
Best week in subscription
drive, 3 more to go over top!
(front page)
 
BY EMMA JOHNSON  
“There is no secret except we are really working at it,” Tom Fiske said by phone from Minneapolis Nov. 19. “We’ve found some sizable areas with industrial workers and a very good receptivity to the paper. Good experiences give confidence and you go for more.”

Minneapolis has climbed into the bold on the scoreboard in the international Militant subscription and Pathfinder books campaign after two good weeks. They doubled their sales compared to the weeks before.

“As we sell door to door,” Fiske said, “we also call people that we’ve met before who didn’t subscribe for one reason or another, but asked us to get back to them. And we contact readers whose subscriptions are expiring to see if they want to renew. Last week we got five or six subscriptions that way. The other thing we have done is add a couple hours to the time we go out to sell the paper each week.”

Supporters of the Militant in Philadelphia — who are in the bold near the top of the chart — decided to raise their goal from 130 to 135, setting an example for other areas in a position to do the same.

This last week supporters of the Militant sold 360 subscriptions, the best so far. With this effort, we have started closing the gap toward the international goal of 2,500 as supporters in every local area are mapping out a plan to go over their quota.

Among the 360 were four workers behind bars, which puts the prisoners’ column at 80 percent, poised to blast over the goal of 15.

“I am a proud worker who stands in solidarity with your socialist creed,” wrote an inmate in California who signed up for six months. “I recently came across your informative paper here in the hole being circulated among inmates. I don’t know who gets the paper, but I am thankful it and other issues are being passed my way.”

Communist workers John Benson and Susan LaMont traveled to Memphis, Tenn., Nov. 14-15, to walk the picket line with members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 252G locked out by Kellogg.

“Many were familiar with the 20-month lockout of workers at American Crystal Sugar,” in the Upper Midwest, which ended earlier this year, LaMont told the Militant. “Local 252G President Kevin Bradshaw welcomed us to the picket line and encouraged us to speak to everyone there.”

“The only way forward for all workers, union and nonunion, is to get together and fight,” said Rev. Ronald Cottie, one of eight members of 252G who signed up for a subscription. “Regardless of where working people are from or whatever country they live in, they should be treated the same.”

In Seattle, Militant supporters joined some 250 workers at a rally of Machinists and others Nov. 18, after members of the union at Boeing rejected a concession contract in a 2-1 vote the week before.

Patrick Mick, 33, a member of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 19 in Seattle, was one of four participants who signed up to receive the paper in the mail. He also bought a copy of Teamster Rebellion. “I’m starting to see what is happening to the workers,” Mick told Militant supporter John Naubert. “The unions before me have fought for us. I want to educate myself and then help educate others about this situation.”

Militant supporters in Houston took a goal of selling 50 subscriptions over two weeks and got 20 in the first, almost double what they have made in any single week before, reported Cindy Jaquith.

“A woman whose brother was killed in a U.S. jail was struck by the article on deaths in police custody in the U.K.,” said Jaquith. “She said come back Sunday after 10 a.m. We were there on time and she had her $5 ready. Another callback got a subscription and a copy of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions,” one of nine Pathfinder books on special with a subscription (see ad on this page).

Supporters in New York have sold 70 copies of the specials since the drive started, the majority in the last few weeks of stepped-up campaigning. Best sellers are The Cuban Five, Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should Be Free with 18 copies and 12 each of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power and The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud of Education Reform Under Capitalism.

“We had our best week so far and narrowed the gap,” reported Seth Galinsky. “We’ve organized weekday evening teams Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and full-day teams on Saturday and Sunday. We mapped out plans for the remaining three weeks of the drive, keeping up the same pace to come out ahead at the end.”

The vast majority of the subscriptions in New York have been sold going door to door, more than 30 in the Rockaways neighborhood in Queens, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy last year.

Ögmundur Jónsson reported that supporters campaigned in Dagenham, East London, over the weekend and signed up 24 people for subscriptions. Among them was Tiffany Atendido, a nurse who is originally from the Philippines. “The government told people to evacuate,” she said, “but many are afraid to leave their properties. You know, the Philippines has 20 storms a year. If leaders had prepared beforehand, people could have been ready for the big one.”

Montreal is another area that had its best week so far. Calling back to a person who had bought a single issue, they were told about a four-day conference of the Quebec Federation of Women, Katy LeRougetel reported.

“We decided to attend, participated in workshop discussions, plenary sessions and informal exchanges for the entire time,” she wrote. “More than 700 women were there, eight bought subscriptions and six of them also got one of the books on special, including copies of Women in Cuba: The Making a Revolution Within the Revolution both in Spanish and English and five titles in French.”
 
 
Related articles:
Fall ‘Militant’ subscription campaign Oct. 12 – Dec. 10 (week 5)
 
 
 
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