A step that is making this possible is that the Militant editor and staff are organizing to complete the paper earlier each Thursday, turning all the pages over to the print shop by late morning. The shop produces Pathfinder books and pamphlets, the weekly Militant, and the monthly Perspectiva Mundial. This means the shop can give the editor page proofs to catch errors or problems prior to plates being made, print the paper, and ship bundles and subscriptions before 4:30 p.m. each week.

Getting out every Thursday after the Militant is printed will build on the success of a May 11 sales mobilization. On that day, socialists workers and Young Socialists members joined actions to defend Cuba's sovereignty and demand the U.S. government return Elián González and his family to Cuba. They also set up sidewalk tables and joined strike actions across New York City and in northern New Jersey.

In New York last week, teams went to a strike rally of workers at Lincoln Center, to midtown to introduce the socialist publications to garment workers getting off work, to several street corners in Upper Manhattan, and to Hunter College and Borough of Manhattan Community College. Debbie Lazar, on the Hunter College team, reports lively exchanges with students there and a lot of interest in the Militant and Pathfinder books.

Militant editor Martín Koppel reports that a construction worker from Colombia met the team at Union Square during the May 11 picket line on Cuba. He later called the offices of the paper asking where he could again meet the socialists in order to purchase a subscription and Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium, by Jack Barnes. Koppel explained a team regularly sets up a table of socialist literature at Union Square on Sundays. The worker stopped by, bought a Militant subscription from the team, discussed what he had been reading in underlined copies of Perspectiva Mundial, and decided to attend a Militant Labor Forum later in the week.  
 
Interest in the Young Socialists
Nancy Rosenstock, a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, said socialist workers in Newark sold five subscriptions to the Militant last Thursday alone. "We had three teams out, in addition to participating in the New York demonstration," Rosenstock said. "This week we plan to send a team to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, to Irvington, where there have been protests against police brutality, and to sell at garment shops in Newark. We met a young person at one street table who is interested in the Young Socialists. She said she planning to return next week to join the team for more discussion and sales."

The staff of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial are also building on accomplishments over the last several weeks to produce both publications in a more timely way and with a content that serves the needs of vanguard militants among workers, farmers, and youth.

The first step, already under way, is to involve more systematically a number of socialist workers and youth across the United States in translating Militant articles for each issue of Perspectiva Mundial. This is how the special May issue of Perspectiva Mundial was produced in two days, translating a Militant editorial and feature article that presented a working-class voice in opposition to the April 22 immigration police assault in Miami. The magazine also responded to the U.S. government's intervention to retake the island of Vieques from Puerto Ricans in order to reassert its military presence and naval exercises there.

Perspectiva Mundial publishes each month a select number of articles from the Militant chosen by the editor and translated by staff members and volunteers around the country. Translation and production of the paper is being reorganized to be completed in a measured way throughout the month, with one-quarter of the magazine translated, laid out, and prepared for the print shop each week. Militant staff members will also lay out the paper along with the PM staff.

Setting an earlier publication time for the Militant each week puts a premium on worker-correspondents around the world sending stories to the Militant no later than Saturday of each week in order to be included in the coming issue. That allows the editor and staff to prepare late-breaking copy and photographs, such as the articles on the mine workers rally in Washington and the Cuban farmers congress featured in this week's issue.

To keep track of the daily production of both the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, a large white board for PM's production has been added next to that of the Militant on one of the walls of the editorial office. One line is drawn through a "page" when the layout is complete, and a "X" when the completed electronic file of the page is ready for the print shop.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home