Vol. 74/No. 2      January 18, 2010

Two Chinese workers, mother and daughter, stopped at a table here displaying the Militant and books from Pathfinder Press outside Farmer John, a hog slaughterhouse with 1,200 workers.

The mother, a longtime meat packer, recognized a member of the team, Wendy Lyons, who had worked in the plant a few years back. She had seen the Militant and Socialist Workers Party election campaign literature previously but can’t read English.

She bought Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution in Chinese, and her daughter bought the pamphlet Malcolm X Talks to Young People in English.

When communist meat packers joined the team, workers were drawn to the table and stopped to chat.

A weekly sale at the plant gate was reestablished about a month ago. Four sales have been organized since then, the first resulting in three subscriptions. At each sale two or three meat packers have picked up the Militant and two have bought a book. One aspect of every sale has been people asking about the union. There have also been discussions on working conditions.

Distributors of the Militant are carrying out weekly propaganda teams at factory gates around the country to expand the readership of the paper among workers. The plant gate teams often help to reinforce the activities of communist workers inside the plants.

Send reports on workers’ responses to the Militant and Pathfinder books at these factory gate sales to themilitant@mac.com for inclusion in an upcoming issue.
 
 
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