Partisans of the socialist publications are celebrating and planning to build on the double victory in the circulation and fund campaigns, which ran together from March 20 to May 17. A total of 2,131 people subscribed to the Militant and 527 to its sister publication in Spanish, Perspectiva Mundial. This means 131 subscribers over the top on the Militant goal and 73 subscriptions short on PM.

Workers, farmers, and others also contributed $95,000 to finance the production and circulation of the socialist publications—$10,000 over the international goal.

At the start of the drive, the Militant editors announced that the introductory subscription rate, formerly $10 for 12 weeks, would be cut in half to take advantage of increased interest and qualitatively increase the paper’s readership. The $5 rate was at that point 16 cents below the cost of printing and shipping, requiring a higher subsidy—one of the reasons for the fund.

But the jump in the number of subscribers has meant a reduction in mailing and printing costs per issue for subscriptions that go out in U.S. second-class mail. “At the beginning of the drive we had under 1,000 subscribers in the U.S.,” reported Michael Italie, the Militant’s business manager. “By the end, the total subscriptions have reached over 2,200. The larger number of subscribers pushed us into a lower mailing rate with the Post Office. Printing and mailing costs for an introductory subscription have now dropped to $4.57.”

“One cost that has gone up is bundle shipping,” Italie noted. “That’s a good problem to have. At the new rate of a buck a copy, we’re selling a lot more single issues. So the bundles to distributors have gotten larger.” The Militant reduced its cover price to $1 from $1.50 in March.

A highlight of the sub campaign was higher sales to members of industrial unions and other workers in industries where attacks by the bosses have generated labor resistance and militancy.

Socialist workers in slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants across the United States, for example, set a goal of winning 233 packinghouse workers to subscribe to the two periodicals. They made both goals, winning 112 new subscribers to the Militant and 132 to Perspectiva Mundial. Lisa Rottach, a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 271 in the giant Swift slaughterhouse in Omaha, describes how she and others there helped lead the way in this effort.

“At Swift there are a number of long-term readers,” Rottach said. “Four of the 10 Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions Swift workers bought recently were renewals.

“At one of our union meetings, the local president encouraged union members to go to the April 25 march in Washington, D.C., to defend a woman’s right to choose abortion. One co-worker, who subscribes to PM, decided to go,” Rottach said. “The next day, I got into a discussion with a friend over why it is important to defend this right. ‘I can’t go along with abortion,’ he told me. Then the co-worker who planned to go on the march joined the discussion. ‘This is a very important right for women, their right to decide,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m going to march in Washington.’ Several workers were surprised and interested when he announced that he was going.

“The next day, the guy who had told me he was opposed to abortion rights came up and said he would like to subscribe to Perspectiva Mundial,” she said.

Rottach reported that the union coverage draws a lot of interest because of ongoing struggles in the packing plants throughout the region to use the union to fight against the speed-up and attacks on wages, working conditions, and union rights.

“At Nebraska Beef, a big non-union slaughterhouse in Omaha, workers have renewed their efforts to organize the plant after losing a union vote in August 2001,” she said. “Our local had a float in the Cinco De Mayo parade. One of the signs read, ‘We have the union at Omaha Steaks, Nebraska Beef, you can do it too.’ Another worker at Omaha Steaks signed up for a PM sub at a table we set up at that parade.”

In addition to winning dozens of new subscribers, Rottach and other partisans of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial got a good response for the fund campaign in the plants. “At Swift seven workers contributed a total of $61 to the fund,” Rottach said. “Many threw in another $5 or $10 when they bought their subscriptions.”

Fund supporters organized special fundraisers. A May Day program in Seattle featured Tom Leonard, a longtime leader of the Socialist Workers Party who was a merchant seaman and active in the National Maritime Union during and after World War II.

The theme of the meeting was the book Aldabonazo, Inside the Cuban Revolutionary Underground 1952-58, recently published by Pathfinder. Leonard described the importance of the revolutionary struggle that unfolded in Cuba then to workers on ship and in ports across the globe.

To top it all off, as this issue went to press, an unexpected contribution of $775 arrived from supporters in Belgium.

“A job well done!” the Militant editor said.

See sales drive chart
See fund drive chart  
 
 
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