We sold more than 70 copies of the Militant in less than two days and ordered 30 more so we didn't run out. We used our Thursday evening sales to get teams out with a special focus on workplaces where struggles have occurred over the past two years, such as UPS, the docks at Port Newark, and the Continental terminal at the airport. We sold 30 papers that day, which included teams in working-class communities.

A Teamster who works at Anheuser-Busch stopped by the Thursday night table in his neighborhood in North Newark. He told us about a union action coming up at his plant, and bought a Militant. The Saturday morning rally drew hundreds of construction workers protesting the use of nonunion contractors at the plant. Participants bought 22 Militants.

On Friday morning a sales team hit the shift change at the Coca Cola plant in Teterboro, selling four copies of the Militant. Workers there waged a three-day strike two weeks ago. A sales team also visited the plant gate at the Ford assembly plant in Metuchen, New Jersey, Saturday morning and sold five copies of the Militant and one PM supplement. Kari Sachs, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress who works in the plant, sold eight more papers inside during the week.

"Some of the people who bought the paper have read it before," said Sachs. "I had pointed to the resistance by meat packers at the Dakota Premium plant as an example of how a rank-and-file leadership could develop in the unions. One of my co-workers responded saying, 'I really want to get that paper, because we need to figure out how to do that here.' She mentioned how we need to fight things like sexual harassment of women and the need for workers to stick together."

Sachs said another Ford co-worker who bought the Militant was part of a campaign to get a union at the Johnson Controls plant up the street from Ford. When he learned about the sit-down strike at the packinghouse he remarked, "I've never heard of anything like that happening."

Nancy Rosenstock, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate in New Jersey, said Militant supporters had their best week of sales yet on the job at the garment shop in Perth Amboy where she works, selling eight PM supplements and one copy of the Militant to co-workers. A big topic of discussion there was the U.S. Navy out of Vieques contingent in the Puerto Rican Day Parade. A worker at a meatpacking plant in Newark, organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), sold two Militants and a PM supplement as well.

We kept the momentum going on Sunday as we campaigned for the Socialist Workers candidates, selling 18 Militants and 8 PM supplements. That day we also sent a team to Trenton to meet with a potential supporter of the campaign who purchased a copy of New International no. 11, which features the article "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War." He offered to help our petitioning efforts to get our presidential ticket on the ballot. That team also went to Bridgeton and Vineland where they met with three farmers.

"We staked out some spots for petitioning in Bridgeton before we met with one of the farmers there," said Lee Oleson, a UFCW member in Newark. "He called up one of his friends, who is also a farmer, to join a discussion with us, which included among other topics the miners' fight for lifetime health care, the Clinton administration's assault on Social Security, and the farmers' trip to Cuba." One of them renewed his sub to the Militant and the other one bought a copy saying he would get a sub the next time. The farmer in Vineland, who is also a Militant subscriber, bought a copy of New International no. 4. He was interested in reading the article, "The Crisis Facing Working Farmers."

It was a good week for socialist workers in Newark. All together we sold almost 100 copies of the Militant and 25 PM supplements from Thursday to Sunday night.  
 

The Militant is getting around to labor battles erupting throughout the St. Paul-Minneapolis area, said Becky Ellis, a member of the Communications Workers of America. "We sold four papers to workers at the Hilton whose strike has now spread to four hotels. We also sold a couple papers to strikers at Pespi, and seven copies of the Militant and four PM supplements to workers at Dakota Premium this week." Ellis said they also sold a number of papers to workers at factories organized by the Steelworkers union, including six at Northstar Steel.

One sales team went to meet auto workers at the Ford credit union where they sold 14 Militants. Roberta Black, a member of the Young Socialists, said one of the workers commented, "We have the same problem at Ford," referring to the meat packers protest against the speed up of production. "They were surprised when I told them the plant was nonunion."

Ellis said the fight at Dakota Premium has had a deep impact on many people, including supporters who had not been around for awhile. One of them, a member of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union at the 3-M plant, called up and asked if she could get some papers to sell. Militant supporters who work at the Dakota Premium Foods plant had two of their co-workers attend the Militant Labor Forum, and supporters in Chippewa Falls drove up with two co-workers from a meatpacking plant there. One of the Dakota Premium workers took a bundle of PMs to sell to other workers.

In Miami, Rachele Fruit, an airline worker, said on the morning of June 19 she went on a sales team that included a farmer, Karl Butts, to the Lykes meatpacking plant in Plant City, Florida. "We sold 10 copies of the Militant, 1 copy of the PM June edition, and 5 PM supplements," she said. "The workers told us they are facing speedup plant conditions too, and one said, 'A sit-down strike! That's what we need to do too.'"

Mary Ann Schmidt said the previous week supporters in Miami had also received good responses to the socialist periodicals. "We had a very successful sale at the plant gate of a UNITE-organized factory where we sold 3 copies of the Militant, 1 PM supplement, and 1 PM subscription," she said. "The workers there spoke about their conflict with the company during contract negotiations, the main issue being a guarantee of 40 hours of work. We also sold four PM supplements on the job at a nonunion garment plant. In Hialeah, a predominantly Cuban working-class neighborhood, we sold 1 Militant, 3 copies of PM, and 5 PM supplements. Most of the people we met identified with the struggle of the workers in St. Paul because of the conditions they face on the job. In a Haitian and Black community we sold 10 copies of the Militant."  
 
 
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