http://themilitant.com/2018/8201/820102.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 1 January 1, 2018
(front page)
Fall campaigns took SWP deeper into working class
Drive led by party members in retail industry
Militant/Clay Dennison
Retired postal worker Jim Kirwan talks with Walmart workers Pat Scott,
center, and Mary Martin about Militant, Socialist Workers Party in
Federal Way, Washington, October 2016.
BY DAN FEIN
The Socialist Workers Party’s successful nine-week fall campaign to
expand the reach of the Militant and books by leaders of the party in
working-class communities and on the job, together with raising $100,000
for the SWP fund drive to meet party expenses was led by members of the
party’s trade union fraction in the retail industry.
Fraction members in the U.S. sold over 10 percent of all the
subscriptions and books sold by party members and its sister Communist
Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Many of the trade union fraction’s members work at Walmart, far and away
the biggest private employer in the U.S., with 1.5 million employees.
Walmart bosses are in a war with Amazon for market share. Both are
squeezing workers to strengthen their company’s competitive position.
There is no union today at Walmart, a bitterly anti-labor employer. Low
pay, changing hours of work each week, part-time hours, and no holiday
pay are some of the conditions Walmart workers face.
Socialist Workers Party members and supporters who work in retail sold
not only to their co-workers, but also door to door in working-class
neighborhoods that workers recommended and in neighborhoods near the
stores. We met co-workers at their homes or restaurants, and often had
the chance to meet and talk politics with family and neighbors as well.
Our discussions revolved around what the working class is facing today
from the bosses and their government and what course points a road out
of the economic and political crisis.
Twenty party members and supporters in retail in 10 U.S. cities adopted
quotas at the beginning of the drive to sell 145 subscriptions and 145
books. We also projected playing a leading role in the SWP fund drive,
taking goals of raising $400 in contributions and winning 82 new donors.
Retail workers and their families, like other workers, feel the effects
of the worldwide economic crisis and accompanying attacks by the
capitalist rulers against the working class — declining standards of
living, growing homelessness, lack of affordable housing and medical
care, deportations, the devastating opioid epidemic, and unending
imperialist war in the Mideast.
We discussed how working people can fight effectively to unify the
working class and chart a course of independent working-class political
action to break out of the carnage we face. Many we met with said they
wanted to keep talking and learn more about the party, getting
subscriptions and books. Forty-five co-workers and others we met in the
neighborhoods of co-workers donated a total of $311 to the fund drive.
Pat Scott works at a Seattle area Walmart and led the effort there. “It
was a chance to talk to other workers about more than just work,” she
said. As she went door to door in the neighborhood near her workplace,
one person she spoke to said, “I know you — you work at Walmart.” She
subscribed.
“I was reading The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record by SWP National
Secretary Jack Barnes during a break at work when a co-worker approached
me and asked ‘What are you reading?’” Scott said. “I told him what it
was about and suggested he get a copy, which he did.” Seattle
campaigners sold 22 subscriptions, 22 books and collected $70 from eight
new contributors.
Rosemary Padia got a Militant subscription from a door-to-door team at
her home across the street from the Davis Street Walmart in Oakland,
California. Later she went to the store to track down Bonnie Brown, who
sold her the subscription, to get the “Clinton book.” Fraction members
in Oakland sold 26 subscriptions and 32 books.
The five books offered at reduced prices with a subscription are
featured in the ad on this page.
Overall, fraction members sold 159 subscriptions to the Militant and 160
books, going over our goals of 145 each.
Isabella Graham from Chicago said one co-worker contributed $10 from
each paycheck during the drive. “Workers need a political party that
supports their struggles and encourages them to organize themselves,”
she told Graham.
This effort by party members and supporters in retail was led by the
fraction’s national steering committee. And they led the entire campaign
effort to take the Socialist Workers Party deeper into the working
class. Fraction members come out of the drive more confident, determined
to continue to advance the party along the same lines. And to follow up
with all those they’ve met who want to learn more about the SWP.
Related articles:
Join in advancing the reach of the SWP
Communist League in UK holds congress
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