Vol. 77/No. 20      May 27, 2013

“We’ve got nothing left to lose. No miner wants to go backwards. I believe in job security and having a say-so about safety,” said Ron Keeney when he bought a subscription outside the portal of Highland No. 9, a coal mine owned by Patriot in Waverly, Ky. Keeney was one of 14 miners who signed up for a subscription during a shift change at the mine. Twenty-eight others bought single copies of the paper.

“I like the door to door,” retired UMWA miner Peggy Vondrasek from Corydon, Ky., said after she joined Militant supporters for the afternoon May 12 in Union, Ky. “I had the opportunity to meet people around the neighborhood who had worked in the mine, who I had heard of before and never met. It was fun.”

A total of 679 subscriptions have been sold by the end of the first week of a seven-week international campaign to win 2,800 Militant subscribers and sell hundreds of books on revolutionary working-class politics.

“We sold 22 subscriptions and 15 single copies door to door in the towns of Madison, Danville, Alkol and Van,” wrote Janet Post, on her way back to Philadelphia from the West Virginia coalfields. “I think my father would appreciate knowing what this paper fights for, and that I am going to buy it,” said Viola Hawley when she bought a subscription in Madison. Her father, Roy Lee Grass, died in 1979 from black lung, a disease caused by exposure to coal dust. “He fought the whole time to get black lung benefits.”

“We found a near unanimous response of solidarity with the hundreds of garment workers killed by the bosses’ greed in Bangladesh described in the May 13 issue,” Post said. “Miners and others saw it as an attack on fellow workers, not some faraway tragic event.”

“The Militant is the only newspaper around that gives the views and is devoted to the working class,” said Jeremy Ray from Tacoma, Wash., when he renewed his subscription for six months. Ray, a member of Teamsters Local 117, was part of a nine-week strike earlier this year at United Natural Foods Inc. in Auburn, Wash.

“In many working-class areas of Miami,” Anthony Dutrow wrote, “we have met more workers who have heard about the case of the Cuban Five.” (See article on page 8.)

“One new subscriber today,” Dutrow added, “saw the Militant coverage and the book The Cuban Five: Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should Be Free as a way to follow the international campaign to free the Five and become part of it.” The book is one of nine books on special with a subscription. (See ad on this page.)

As in the past couple of drives, the Militant has the goal of selling 15 subscriptions to workers behind bars. The number of prisoners with subscriptions has more than doubled in the last few years, now reaching 72 across the U.S.

To join the effort to expand circulation of the working-class press, call Militant distributors in your region listed on page 10 or contact the Militant at (212) 244-4899 or themilitant@mac.com.  

 
 
Related articles:
Spring ‘Militant’ subscription campaign May 4 – June 25 (week 1) (chart)
Active workers conference set for July 19-20
 
 
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