Vol. 77/No. 44      December 9, 2013

Benson and Susan LaMont traveled to Memphis Nov. 14-15, where members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union Local 252G have been locked out by Kellogg since Oct. 22.

Atlanta is one of the areas where supporters of the Militant around the world are making steady progress in the international subscription and books campaign. Coming out of the best week so far with 433 subscriptions sold, we are now on schedule and in a good position to go well over our goal by the end of the drive Dec. 10.

Philadelphia and Twin Cities are at the top of the scoreboard. Philadelphia raised its goal last week and Twin Cities followed suit this week.

Paul Pederson in Washington, D.C., reported that they had their best week so far, narrowing the gap substantially.

“Ethiopians here have been protesting against the crackdown and killing of at least three Ethiopian immigrant workers in Saudi Arabia after the government there ordered them to leave the country by Nov. 3 and they staged protests,” Pederson said.

After selling one subscription at an action Nov. 18, Pederson said a team went door to door the following night and signed up four new readers, two of them workers from Ethiopia.

A team of supporters in New York attended a program on the Korean War, featuring a film, a panel and a discussion at City College Nov. 21.

“After I spoke in the discussion, a woman came up to me and said she appreciated my remarks,” Seth Galinsky reported. “She decided to take out an introductory subscription. So did two other participants during the event.”

Galinsky was also part of a team that went to a demonstration to free Oscar López, the longest held Puerto Rican political prisoner in the U.S., where another four participants decided to subscribe.

During the weekend Nov. 23-24 supporters in New York signed up 50 new readers and sold 11 campaign books, bringing the number of titles by Pathfinder Press sold there since the beginning of the drive to 96. Top seller is The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning with 22 copies. This is one of nine titles on special offer (see ad below).

“A team of three, including myself, went door to door in the Electchester housing complex in Queens,” Dan Fein reported. “We sold 10 subscriptions and five campaign books. We led with the social disaster in the Philippines being caused by capitalism and the discussion on this is what convinced most of the subscribers to sign up.”

An inmate in California became the eighth new subscriber behind bars. Along with six renewals this brings the prisoners column to the very top of the scoreboard, just one short of making the goal.

A team of supporters from Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia and Des Moines, Iowa, took part in the Nov. 20-25 Salón de Livre in Montreal, the biggest book fair with French-language literature in North America and sold 18 subscriptions, twice as many as last year.

John Steele reported that 15 of the new subscribers took advantage of the book specials. Top seller were books in French by Thomas Sankara with 11 copies sold. Sales of books were up from 41 last year to 56 this year.

“We are paying attention to how we do every single day,” Betsy Farley in Chicago said by phone Nov. 26. “We plan door-to-door teams every evening. We are going to make our goal and this is what it will take. We had a couple good weeks, but we need to step up further.”

Farley says supporters there have gone to two community actions by workers protesting waste from a refinery piling up in their neighborhood.

“The refinery is stepping up production and dust is blowing all over the residential area,” she said. “We met steelworkers, autoworkers and construction workers. They demand the waste be moved or at least covered up. We sold a couple subscriptions at each of these actions. Health and safety issues follow workers everywhere.”
 
 
Related articles:
Fall ‘Militant’ subscription campaign Oct. 12 – Dec. 10 (week 6) (chart)
 
 
 
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