Militant supporters found wide interest among Hershey workers throughout their 44-day fight against company attempts to make workers pay more for medical coverage. On the day of the contract vote, unionists grabbed 63 copies of the paper and purchased three subscriptions.

During the target week, supporters began closing the gap on the subscription drive, but we remain behind. It will require a major daily effort in each area to reach 100 percent of the three goals by June 23. Supporters are urged to map out a plan for the remaining days of the drive, including looking at the possibility of taking a day or two off work to join regional or local sales teams.

The subscription drive is an important way socialist workers and young socialists respond to developments in world politics. Feature coverage in the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and in the pages of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution that explain the decade-long effort by the U.S. rulers to federalize the police, expand spying powers, erode constitutional rights, and undercut workers’ rights, are of interest to growing numbers of workers and farmers who start to see just who the "war on terror" is really aimed at. Discussing these political perspectives while introducing the socialist press will help boost overall sales and win new subscribers and readers of Pathfinder books.

Supporters in Atlanta did well during the June 1–9 target week, selling 11 Militant and three Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions, along with three copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution. They found particular interest among working farmers, supporters of the Palestinian struggle, and defenders of the Cuban Revolution. Textile workers in Dalton, Georgia, picked up a Militant and Perspectiva Mundial subscription, and two Delta Airlines workers in Atlanta also bought subscriptions.

On a communist literature table at the University of Texas at Brownsville, a young woman who purchased Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle by Thomas Sankara invited socialists to participate in Mujerfest, a women’s conference in nearby McAllen.

A team of socialists from Des Moines, Iowa, and St. Paul, Minnesota, reached out to packinghouse workers in the Midwest on the last weekend of the target week, Joe Swanson reported. They sold two Militant and two Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions to packinghouse workers in front of meatpacking plants and going door-to-door in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Worthington, Minnesota.
 

New Zealand on target

BY FELICITY COGGAN  
AUCKLAND, New Zealand--Supporters in Auckland, New Zealand, reached their Militant goal during the June 1-9 target week through stepped-up sales in the workers district near the Pathfinder bookstore, on two campuses, and at a busy flea market.

They traveled to Tokoroa where the Carter Holt Harvey timber company recently announced that it will lay off nearly half the workforce at the Kinleith pulp and paper mill. The mill, which currently employs 770 workers and is organized by the Engineers Union, is the largest forestry production facility in the country.

A boilermaker and unionist picked up a subscription. He told Militant supporters that the company is trying to break the union in a plant considered to be a strong center for the union in the country.

Earlier in the week, socialists took the paper to a meeting of high school teachers voting on a proposed contract settlement. Following a sustained period of strike and protest action, the nationwide contract recommended by the union leadership was overwhelmingly rejected.
 

Team sells to meat packers in Omaha
 
BY JAY PARADISO  
OMAHA, Nebraska--"We have been oppressed for hundreds of years, I need to read this paper," said one unemployed worker, pointing to a copy of the Militant newspaper. He bought a subscription and plans to receive the paper each week by hand delivery.

In an effort to expand the number of Militant and Perspectiva Mundial subscribers among meat packers in Nebraska, socialists fielded a three-day team June 8–10 to several packing plants in the area. The team sold at the Con Agra plant, where workers recently won a union organizing drive, at the Hormel and Fremont Beef plants in Fremont and at Nebraska Beef in south Omaha. Four workers bought subscriptions to the Militant, and one bought a subscription to Perspectiva Mundial. Twenty Militants, seven copies of Perspectiva Mundial, and three copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution were also sold.

Several meat packers at the Farmland packing plant in Crete purchased the socialist literature. One worker, who also farms, whipped out $10 and said "sign me up." He told Militant supporters that Farmland declared bankruptcy and many workers were unable to cash their checks the previous week.  
 
 
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