BY PAUL MAILHOT AND NAOMI CRAINE
Let's get on schedule! That's the challenge being made
by supporters of the Militant in the nine areas that are
on target in the international subscription drive to win
new readers to the socialist press. Socialist workers and
youth in other areas - many of whom are only a few
percentage points below the 25 percent "on schedule" mark
this week - need to step up the organization of the drive
and bring more cities into the "on target" category.
As we enter the third week of the international drive to sell 1,950 subscriptions to new readers of the Militant, 525 subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, and 750 copies of the Marxist magazine New International we stand at 21 percent internationally with 408 Militant subscriptions sold, 174 new subscribers to Perspectiva Mundial, and 98 copies of New International sold.
In Vancouver, British Columbia, socialist workers noted midweek they were falling behind and decided to organize the extra push needed to get out evening teams during the week and a big day Saturday going door-to-door in student dormitories and apartments. By Sunday they were back on target. Beverly Bernardo said the coverage of the referendum on Quebec sovereignty and articles on Cuba helped engage people in discussions and interest them in getting a subscription.
They plan to have a team at a demonstration in Victoria, British Columbia, to protest cuts in education funding and are joining with activists heading to San Francisco for a regional demonstration on October 14 against the U.S. government's embargo of Cuba. Along with plans for more door-to-door sales, campus tables, and attending political events, they aim to come out of the third week of the drive ahead of schedule.
Nine target days for sales blitz
The Militant is asking its supporters in every city to
join in making special plans to target Saturday, October
28, through Sunday, November 5, for subscription sales to
the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and single copy sales
of New International. We can start now to plan regional
teams to regional areas where important strikes or
political activities are taking place and coordinate
taking days off work to get as many people as possible
geared into these special opportunities to win new readers
to the socialist press.
The most important preparation for the target days, though, will be to head into them with a good percentage of our goals sold and use the added time we devote to sales in those days to come out ahead of schedule in the international drive. This will give us the needed momentum to close out the subscription campaign two weeks later on November 19, in full and on time.
While the scoreboard shows we have our work cut out for us in most places, reports coming in indicate that where we organize ourselves we get results.
Branches of the Socialist Workers Party in many cities have been successful in getting large numbers of Militant supporters out on weekend teams to campaign with the socialist press. In Newark, New Jersey, 21 people formed six teams to spend Sunday, October 8, introducing the paper to people and passing out flyers for the October 21 demonstration in New York City calling for an end to Washington's embargo of Cuba. One team also went to Englewood, New Jersey, where a fight over desegregation is shaping up, and found a lot of interest in the Militant's coverage of desegregation fights around the country.
The Newark teams concentrated on going door-to-door, as well as visiting areas they had been to the week before where people had signed up to have someone call back to collect money for a subscription. Nine new readers of the Militant and one for Perspectiva Mundial subscribed from these teams, including several who had asked to be called back.
Daily attention to the drive, and a plan for teams throughout the week, has been key to the success in Philadelphia. Socialist workers use their weekly meetings to sign people up to participate in teams and set a plan to meet the weekly goal. Organizers of the sales effort review the sign-up sheet during a break in the meeting to make adjustments in the number or size of teams to insure that the plans that have been mapped out can be accomplished.
The daily attention to the sales effort in Philadelphia has helped boost circulation of the press among co- workers. Socialist Workers Party city council candidate John Staggs sold four new subscriptions and a renewal to members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) before being laid off from his job at Ford Electronics. Mayoral candidate Deborah Liatos sold two subscriptions to co-workers who are members of the International Association of Machinists at USAir.
More organized efforts to get the press out on the job is one of the goals of the subscription drive. Supporters in many areas are taking advantage of the final push to get people to attend the regional actions in defense of Cuba and against the U.S. government's embargo as a way to reach out to more co-workers.
Accurate reports of sales on the job and the latest figures of what has been sold to fellow workers in our unions haven't made it in to the Militant office yet. Socialist workers in the different unions need to send in reports of what has been sold by noon on Tuesday each week to be included in the scoreboard. This is the same deadline for reporting all the figures from each city for sales of New International. Reports on experiences in the sales campaign can be faxed in at any time.
Below is a recent report from Boston supporters:
BOSTON - After receiving our papers on Friday night we
sold 43 copies and had to order 25 more. Over the weekend
we sold the paper at an immigrant rights protest where
someone subscribed to Perspectiva Mundial, at a dinner
featuring families of Irish hunger strikers, door-to-door,
and on street tables.
Striking workers from the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News toured Boston this week. We sold four singles at the Boston Herald plant gate while helping to leaflet for their meeting and we sold two Militant subscriptions at meetings where they spoke in Boston and Providence, Rhode Island.
We took advantage of the Columbus Day holiday to get all- day teams out with tables to build the October 21 march in New York demanding an end to the embargo of Cuba. We found real interest in the article on the Quebec referendum in a neighborhood with many Haitian immigrants who have lived in Quebec and one Militant subscription was sold there. Mary Nell Bockman