Vol. 79/No. 19      May 25, 2015

The fund lets those who appreciate and respect the paper join in financially backing it. It’s instrumental in making possible the generous introductory offer to new subscribers — 12 weeks for $5. The fund gained $1,760 in new pledges from Houston and Montreal last week, but we are still short of quotas that add up to the international goal.

The growing interest in the Militant among working-class fighters today reflected in the response to our spring subscription drive, which remains ahead of schedule, means we can win more readers to contribute. Where the response to the paper has been the strongest, supporters can consider ways to increase and go over local quotas.

Stalin Harrison in Seattle has read the paper for several years. He recently renewed and made a contribution to the fund. He displays the Militant and Pathfinder books in his barbershop near the Militant Labor Forum hall and has signed up new subscribers.

“I like the Militant because it keeps people’s minds open,” he said. “It reports not on only struggles in the U.S. but around the world. I also like the reviews and articles about past struggles so we can see what people like Malcolm X said as they fought in their day.”

Harrison said that his customers are continually talking about the fights breaking out nationwide against police brutality and he appreciates and shares the Militant’s coverage.

Members and supporters of the Socialist Workers Party, and Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, introduce people to the Militant as they participate in strike picket lines, social protests and engage in discussions on workers’ doorsteps in big cities, small towns and rural areas.

Visiting Stocksbridge 30 miles east of Manchester, England, supporters met Mary Clancy May 9. She helps her brother on the family farm near this town of 17,000 people. Clancy said they had been forced to end milk production and now rely solely on cattle raising.

“Farmers are paid less for milk than the price of water,” she said. The owner of the land recently raised the rent, but they’ll never give up farming, she said. “There are so many unknown chemicals in the food today. But when you grow it yourself you know what you eat.”

Andrés Mendoza showed her New International no. 13, “Our Politics Start With the World,” which contains the articles “Farming, Science and the Working Classes” by Socialist Workers Party leader Steve Clark and “Capitalism, Labor, and the Transformation of Nature: an Exchange,” by Clark and Richard Levins, professor and researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“The articles explain that the environment is not safe and the food we eat won’t be safe until workers and farmers take control over food production,” Mendoza said.

Clancy subscribed to the paper and got the magazine.

Everyone who gets a subscription can buy books published by Pathfinder Press and issues of New International at half price.

Four more people signed up on their doorsteps in Stocksbridge and one took advantage of the half-price offer to get the pamphlet The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning.

L.A. port truck drivers’ pickets

“We’re striking because we’re misclassified as owner-operators instead of employees,” José Antonio Portillo said while picketing outside Intermodal Bridge Transport April 27.

Supporters in London have responded to a series of strikes by refuse truck drivers in Dagenham in the east of the city. They ended an eight-day walkout May 8 and have announced new strike actions on May 13 for 13 days and May 30 for nine days. (See article page 5.)

“We are known on their picket line for going door to door in the area building support for their struggle as we discuss politics and show people the paper,” Ögmundur Jónsson reported May 11. “Over the weekend we signed up four new readers.”

On May 9, Maggie Trowe got on a bus with others in New York going to the Million Moms March in Washington. (See article page 9.)

“I joined the march and rally with some of my bus mates and Glova Scott, a Walmart workers and Socialist Workers Party leader in D.C. We met people from Milwaukee, St. Louis, Washington, from all over the country,” Trowe said. “We learned about a number of fights against cops killing unarmed men we hadn’t known about.”

“During the trip down, we got to know each other,” Trowe said. “On the way back we used the bus PA system to discuss what we thought of the day. Nearly everyone spoke. Then we watched ‘Justifiable Homicide,’ a video about Margarita Rosario’s fight to get charges brought against the New York cops who killed her son and nephew in 1995.”

“As part of the day’s activities, four people at the march and two on the bus I talked to decided they wanted to take advantage of the introductory subscription offer,” she said.

Take the Militant with you to protests against police brutality, rallies demanding $15 and a union and other labor actions. Join other readers knocking on doors in working-class neighborhoods, telling people about political activities in their area and worldwide, and winning new readers. And please make a generous contribution to the fund. Contact a distributor listed on page 8.

Send in reports on your experiences we can share with other readers.
 
 
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