Socialist workers across the United States are starting to expand and regularize a weekly presence at factory plant gates and mine portals in order to get the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder literature into the hands of working people. This is a key way socialist workers provide a working-class view on political issues, economic questions, and other developments facing workers and unionists.

In Birmingham, supporters of the socialist press went to the airport to talk to airline workers about the recent job action by pilots who turned down overtime as part of a fight for a contract. "In addition to the current issue we took previous issues of the paper with us, which featured coverage of workers at a number of major airlines demanding better pay and working conditions in actions across the country," wrote Bruce Trainor.

"We approached a few workers asking them what they thought about forced overtime and the pilots' fight. The first worker we met near the Northwest Airlines ticket counter was a ground service worker for Aviation Ground Services (AGS) who bought a copy of the Militant. He suggested we wait there in order to meet a few of his co-workers when they got off work. He was interested in the workers' actions in the airline industry as well as the coverage on South Africa."

Trainor said they saw one worker who had bought the paper reading it with one of the restaurant workers. "We spoke with another airline worker who is 20 years old and works at AGS. He said he supported the pilots. 'If the pilots don't want to work, you can't make them work,' he said. 'It should be their right to not work. People have families to go home to. They put you in a situation of having to choose between your family and your job.' He bought a copy of the Militant and said he would keep us posted if he hears of other developments at the airport."

Jacquie Henderson from Houston said socialist workers there sold six copies of PM and three Militants at two local meatpacking plants. "Workers were very interested in the victory by the meat packers at Dakota Premium in St. Paul, Minnesota," she said.

Henderson explained another aspect of the work of branches of the Socialist Workers Party, which is to systematize sales and literature tables in a workers district in the city the branch is located in. "We set up a sales table about three blocks from the Pathfinder bookstore that attracted the attention of a worker from Mexico," she said. "He listened to our explanation of the pamphlet The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning and remarked, 'I'm surprised to see you here. When I came up here from Mexico of all the things I thought I'd see, I didn't expect to see people like you standing and talking about books like these.' He purchased that title and the newly printed Pathfinder nacio con la revolucion de octubre (Pathfinder was born with the October revolution)."

Henderson said that at the Militant Labor Forum four people bought membership cards for the Pathfinder Readers Club and participants at the meeting also purchased several titles, including Teamster Power, Socialism on Trial, Pathfinder nacio con la revolucion de octubre, and the Spanish version of Che Guevara and the Fight for Socialism Today.

In eastern Pennsylvania Candace Wagner reported that last Sunday afternoon socialists "knocked on doors across the street from the toxic dump containing 500,000 tons of car batteries in Throop, Pennsylvania. We showed workers who live in the neighborhood some of the recent coverage in the Militant on environmental disasters in the area and nationally. They had mixed opinions on the dump--from confidence in the EPA's decision not to remove the waste, to anger about the existence of this danger so close to their homes. Two young men each gave us $5 for the Militant.

In Upper Manhattan, Brian Williams said a young woman approached a literature table they set up in the workers district in Washington Heights and remarked how she had bought a copy of the Marxist magazine New International no. 7 that features the article "Opening Guns of World War III," while she was in Cuba staying with a Cuban family. "I sold her a copy of the Militant and she said members of the Cuban family suggested she read the NI as an important step toward furthering her political education."  
 
 
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