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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 15 April 17, 2017
(front page)
Socialist Workers Party kicks off spring campaign
Help expand reach of ‘Militant’, raise funds!
BY MARY MARTIN
The first weekend got the Socialist Workers Party’s seven-week spring
campaign off to a good start. The drive will present the party, the
Militant newspaper and books on working-class politics from Pathfinder
Press to working people on their doorsteps, strike picket lines and
social protests. It focuses on finding workers and youth who want to
read and discuss how to defend the interests of the working class as we
expand the readership for the SWP’s paper and books.
The campaign runs together with the Militant Fighting Fund, a drive to
raise $112,000 to keep getting the Militant out and around. Quotas for
the campaign taken by branches of the SWP and Communist Leagues in
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are listed in
charts below and on page 3.
A team of three SWP members — Ilona Gersh, Leroy Watson, and Betsy
Farley — drove from Chicago to the working-class suburbs of St. Louis
April 1 and joined the picket line of striking workers at Holten Meats
in Sauget, Illinois. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655
members have been on strike for two weeks there against their bosses’
concession demands. Ten strikers got copies of the Militant.
The socialist workers then went to nearby Granite City, Illinois, where
U.S. Steel idled a mill last year, laying off 2,000 workers. Knocking on
doors near the plant, they found real interest in discussing the crisis
workers face today. In one block they sold three subscriptions and a
copy of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and
Learning Under Capitalism by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes.
The book is one of three — along with The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class
Record: Why Washington Fears Working People, also by Barnes, and Is
Socialist Revolution in the US Possible? A Necessary Debate Among
Working People by SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters — on special offer with a
subscription.
Watson and Farley met Jill Turner on her doorstep. Turner, whose husband
works for a nonunion construction outfit, said neither of them has
health insurance. “It’s not that we don’t want health care, it’s that we
can’t afford it!” she said. “And then you get hit by the government with
a $1,000 penalty the first year and $2,000 the second year for not
having insurance.”
“We have to fight to make health care a basic right guaranteed for all,
not a profit-making business,” Farley said. “That’s what the Socialist
Workers Party stands for.”
“The only thing Trump had to offer workers during the presidential
campaign was a promise of jobs,” Turner said when the discussion turned
to U.S. politics. “Now that he’s in office what has he done? Nothing. He
just wants to blame everything on the Mexicans.”
Turner said her ex-husband was from Mexico. “He was deported, now he may
never see his two children again,” she said. “He lived here since he was
16 years old. All he ever did was work and care for his family, and for
that he was thrown out of the country.”
Watson said the SWP calls for amnesty for all immigrants here without
papers, and an end to raids and deportations.
“That’s the only way to unite the working class and stop the bosses and
their government from using the divisions they foster between
native-born and immigrant workers to lower wages and working conditions
for all,” he said.
“My husband will be excited to read this too, we talk about this kind of
stuff all the time,” Turner said, signing up for a 12-week introductory
subscription.
Members of the SWP in Seattle took the party-building campaign to
longshoremen at the ILWU union hall. Ten longshoremen picked up the
Militant and kicked in several dollars extra to the Militant Fighting
Fund. And two got copies of The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record and
Are They Rich Because They’re Smart?
Pat Scott, a Walmart worker, joined Mary Martin, SWP candidate for mayor
of Seattle, and John Naubert to knock on doors near the store in Federal
Way. Many people recognized her because they shop where she works.
“We’re with the Socialist Workers Party and want to talk to you about
what working people can do about the crisis we face,” she told them.
“Take a look at our paper.” A number picked up a copy and a few asked
Scott to come back after payday to get a subscription.
One of the aims of the party-building drive is to win more people to
join in introducing the party and its program to workers.
On April 2, a team of four traveled to Sunnyside, where they joined a
march and rally sponsored by the United Farm Workers to commemorate the
life and work of César Chávez, a founder and leader of the union in the
1960s and ’70s. Similar actions were held in California, Oregon and
Texas. Nine marchers got Militant subscriptions.
Maria Garcia joined the action from Pullman. “We need to stand in
solidarity with all immigrants and especially those who work as hard as
those in the fields,” she said. She got a subscription and a copy of Is
Socialist Revolution in the US Possible? The SWP members also went door
to door in Sunnyside, getting four more subscriptions.
Lea Sherman, director of the Militant Fighting Fund, reports there has
been an increase in contributions given by workers on their doorsteps.
In New York one team of party members campaigning in the Bronx collected
$27. “We’re asking people to send their contributions in now,” she said.
To join in the campaign or to order books and papers to use to sign up
others or to contribute to the fund, contact the SWP or Communist League
branch nearest you, listed on page 4.
Related articles:
Campaign to sell ‘Militant’ subscriptions and books April 1-May 23 (chart)
Militant Fighting Fund April 1-May 23 $112,000 (chart)
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