The Militant - January 30, 2006 -- Coal miners begin to renew their ‘Militant’ subscriptions

Vol. 70/No. 4 January 30, 2006

Coal miners begin to renew
their ‘Militant’ subscriptions
(front page)

BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
“We have two six-month renewals so far from a UMWA retiree and the Fivecoats, who have supported the Co-Op miners fight for a union here,” said Alyson Kennedy from Price, Utah, in a January 17 note about the start of the Militant’s sub renewal campaign the day before in the western coalfields. “Tomorrow we’ll pick up another renewal. We have gone through the lists of subscribers and have figured out whose subs are up and when they are up.”

The campaign, which lasts through February 20, aims to increase the Militant’s long-term readership by winning at least 500 of the 3,200 people who subscribed last fall to renew their subs.

“We are also planning another sub renewal team in the coal mining areas of the Navajo Nation and Farmington, New Mexico,” Kennedy continued.

Coal miners and other working people have been eager to buy the paper the last two weeks.

“Sales the last week in Price, Utah; Farmington, New Mexico; and Kayenta and Window Rock, Arizona, totaled 125 copies and one subscription,” wrote Frank Forrestal from Kearny, Arizona. He was part of a team of Militant readers who sold the paper at mine portals and door-to-door in the region.

At the McKinley mine in New Mexico 25 coal miners of the 300 there bought last week’s issue. “One of the miners who has been reading the paper for months, stopped by to say that he, and especially his wife, liked the Militant,” Forrestal said.

“At one shift change at the Crown II mine in Virden, Illinois, on January 14, we sold 21 copies,” wrote Kevin Dwire from Des Moines, Iowa. The mine is organized by United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Local 1969. He added that one miner who had subscribed a week earlier donated $20 to the Militant Fighting Fund (see front-page article).

“The Sago Mine disaster and the response by supporters of the Militant is having an impact among workers in New York,” said Dave Prince. “About 40 people attended the Friday night Militant Labor Forum here on January 13. During the discussion, Bill Hovland spoke. He described how he worked in the early 1980s for a year and a half on the same crew at another West Virginia mine with one of the miners killed at Sago, and talked about the conditions there. He told me later that this worker was one of the miners who walked out when Bill was fired, and helped win his job back. The forum had an impact on a doorman in the area, a member of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ who has become a regular forum participant over the last couple of months. He has a subscription to the Militant, and has sold five subs to people he knows and works with.”

These reports are a good omen for winning many sub renewals. Reports like these, along with sub renewals sold, are needed at the Militant each week by Tuesday nights. All readers are welcome to join the effort (contact the Militant or see directory of distributors).

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