After a round of discussions this week, supporters in a number of cities around the world increased their goals, bringing the international goals to 1,000 Militant subscriptions, 500 subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, and 1,900 copies of the three Pathfinder pamphlets--Pathfinder Was Born with the October Revolution, The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud of Education Reform under Capitalism, and The Coming American Revolution: Organizing to Win the Inevitable Battles.
Socialist workers and Young Socialists in Upper Manhattan are helping to set the pace for the international circulation campaign. Brian Williams reports they "sold five Militant subscriptions, three PM subscriptions, 31 copies of the Militant, and more than $200 worth of Pathfinder literature at literature tables set up in the workers district in Upper Manhattan.
Another Militant subscription and three more PM subs were purchased at a concert for a Cuban artist and a meeting celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Cuban victory at Playa Girón. There was a lot of interest at all the sales in the events in Cincinnati and in the Cuban Revolution. Two people gave an extra $5 when they purchased a single copy of the paper."
Regional sales teams will be an important part of the campaign. A team traveling in the western coalfields received a good response from many workers to the Militant's coverage of the fight by uranium miners for compensation from the government for serious health problems resulting from radiation and other effects of uranium production. "We ran into many workers who had worked in the uranium mines or had family members who worked there," said one member of the team.
In New Mexico, coal miners purchased two Militant subscriptions and 49 copies of the paper at the portal of the McKinley mine where members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) won their strike against the Pittsburg and Midway Coal Co. last year. The miners pushed back the coal bosses' demands for concessions. At the McKinley mine, located on a Navajo reservation, more than 90 percent of the miners are Navajo.
In a sale at the Black Mesa mine in Arizona, miners purchased 36 copies of the Militant. UMWA members there won a strike against the Peabody Coal company last year, following the victory of the P&M strike. The regional coal team has sold seven Militant subscriptions and 143 papers to workers and students during their visit to the region, as well as some Pathfinder titles, including Fertile Ground: Che Guevara and Bolivia, The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning, and Socialism and Man in Cuba. They also strengthened political ties with some of the miners they met before who were involved in the strikes last year.
Struggles are also bubbling in poultry plants around the country. Rollande Girard, from Fresno, California, said she and a fellow meat packer sold the Militant and PM at a recent Saturday morning plant gate sale at the Foster Farms poultry facility in Livingston, California.
"It was nonstop cars coming in and out of the plant, where about 2,300 people work," she said. "A majority of them are from Mexico, while many are from Punjab, India, and countries in Asia. The workers at the chicken plant struck the company in 1997. All those who stopped told us that conditions in the plant are getting worse, with many injuries resulting from the bosses speeding up the line. Some of them said they can't wait until 2002 when the new contract will be negotiated." Girard said they sold one subscription to PM, 13 copies of PM, and 13 copies of the Militant.
Plans for regional sales team to other packing plants include following up on a previous visit to the Excel beef slaughterhouse in Fort Morgan, Colorado, where some 1,600 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) waged a three-day strike in an ongoing struggle to change the intolerable working conditions in the plant.
Meat packers in the Washington, D.C., area are working out plans to visit poultry facilities in Maryland and Delaware, where a number of union organizing drives have been won, and to Tar Heel, North Carolina, where Smithfield Foods, the world's largest hog processing plant with 4,500 workers, is located. Anyone interested in joining these teams can drop a line to the Militant.
Building up the readership of the two publications among working people and others fighting police brutality is also a central part of the subscription drive. Last weekend partisans of the Militant from Cleveland and Detroit joined with supporters in Cincinnati to participate in the protests against the cop killing of Timothy Thomas. They sold 48 copies of the Militant and six copies of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning.
Over the next few days many socialist workers, members of the Young Socialists, and other supporters of the two publications will be making plans to participate in the Emergency Action for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C. This will be a good opportunity to discuss revolutionary ideas and sell subscriptions and other socialist literature to thousands of young women and others involved in the action. Buses are being organized from a number of cities on the East Coast.
We encourage everyone to send in notes and pictures on how the drive is going in your area. Feel free to order a small bundle of the Militant or Perspectiva Mundial in order to introduce the papers to co-workers, fellow farmers, strikers, friends, and other working people over the next eight weeks. Building up the readership of the two publications and of Pathfinder books among workers and farmers in struggle and youth attracted to the working-class movement is an essential part of constructing a revolutionary leadership today. Join with us in this effort!
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