Vol. 73/No. 7      February 23, 2009

Williamson and another supporter of the paper at the plant also met with a former coworker in Marshalltown who renewed and bought a copy of Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? “She and her husband appreciate the paper’s coverage of the fight for safety on the job. Her husband, who is a construction worker, witnessed a crane accident last year where a coworker was killed,” Williamson said in a phone interview.

Halfway through the four-week campaign to win 400 long-term readers to the Militant, the effort is behind schedule with 249 to go by the February 24 deadline. Distributors need to map out plans now to bring the campaign to a successful conclusion.

The work to win readers to subscribe long-term to the paper takes a concerted effort. Militant campaigners are not just calling subscribers, but setting up meetings and visiting their homes. Having a good selection of revolutionary literature is a key part of deepening discussions on the need for workers to organize to take power in the face of the accelerating capitalist economic crisis. As they are meeting with those who have been reading the Militant, they are also signing up new readers—25 in the past week.

Militant supporters in Des Moines will be traveling to Cherokee, Iowa, this weekend to talk to members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union at the Tyson plant, who rejected the company’s contract offer. They will also be going to Waterloo, Iowa, with other socialist campaigners from Twin Cities, Minnesota, to follow up with those who subscribed last year during protests against workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Three packinghouse workers in Long Prairie, Minnesota, renewed their subscriptions for six months after meeting with fellow meat packers from Twin Cities. One worker, who also bought Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? discussed the need to build the union to fight the effects of the bosses’ dangerous and dehumanizing speedup of the production line—denying bathroom breaks and causing injuries.

“We sent a team to Peoria to find out more about how the economic crisis and layoffs at Caterpillar are effecting working people in Central Illinois,” writes Ben O’Shaughnessy from Chicago. They sold 22 single copies and 2 introductory subs in the Peoria area as well as another two dozen papers, two renewals, and two other introductory subscriptions while campaigning for Betsy Farley, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Congress in the 5th district in Illinois.

Please join the campaign by renewing your subscription. Contact a distributor listed on page 8 to find out more.

2009 'Miltant subscription renewal drive: January 23 - February 24 (chart)