Portside

Chinese workers to vote on union leadership.

The Center for Media and Democracy says the Pennsylvania effort is part of a nationwide campaign against unions by right-wing business groups, such as the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party organization FreedomWorks.

Many activists rely on fiction for inspiration, new perspectives, and, of course, entertainment. For some of us, novels even helped start us down our paths of activism. But—which novels? A survey of a handful of labor activists and educators revealed their favorite class-conscious novels.

As The Nation has reported, in a charge filed one week before November’s Black Friday strike, Walmart had accused the United Food & Commercial Workers union of organizing illegal pickets for the purpose of winning union recognition (the protests were spearheaded by the UFCW-backed group OUR Walmart).