Witches Of The World Unite!

Themes of women’s liberty, worker solidarity and resistance to capitalism are all addressed in The

(Image via Goodreads)

Factory Witches of Lowell, a lovely novella by C.S. Malerich about a 19th-Century cotton workers union.

The story follows union organizer Judith and her witch coworker Hannah as they organize the women factory workers into a labour union to oppose Mr. Boott, the agent of the capitalists back in Boston.

Hannah casts a spell with the cooperation of the other factory girls that will enforce solidarity among the workers. None of them can break the strike without the cooperation of all the workers. Solidarity being perhaps the most useful tool among the working class, this is very powerful magic indeed.

Of particular note is how magic in The Factory Witches is inherently tied to a capitalist worldview, as it is impossible to cast a spell without ownership of the spell components. This draws into question the very nature of ownership over intellectual property and its theft.

Mr. Boott, as an agent of wealthier men back in the city, is doing all he can to ensure the highest profits for his principals. He raises the cost of rent, threatens lower wages and longer hours. He squeezes the workers to ensure profit stays where it belongs, with the wealthy owners. He is the clear villain as he attempts to break the strike by the factory girls. He plays this role well and is a thoroughly unlikeable character.

Overall, the story is one with a good message and a strong narrative. At a scant 80 pages, it moves along quickly and provides a hurried resolution. While many SFF stories can feel long, this novella’s weakness is that it might be too short. This results in underemphasizing the factory workers’ struggle, and failing to depict the efforts that capitalists were, and still are, willing to make to break a strike and the power of unions.

It’s easy to enthusiastically recommend this story when wanting more is our biggest quibble. We look forward to reading more work by C.S. Malerich.

A People's Future Without Labour

Forty years ago, Boston University history professor Howard Zinn refused to cross a picket line, in a

Howard Zinn speaking to one
of his colleagues during the 1979
Boston University staff strike.
(Image via HowardZinn.org)

show of solidarity with striking clerical workers at his institution. Speaking with the workers on the picket line motivated him to help raise the level of labour history awareness in his country.

He came to believe that the inclusion of labour narratives in popular history books could help. The resulting work, A People’s History Of The United States, has become an influential and controversial classic that examines previously untold stories of workers and marginalized peoples. 

Any author or editor attempting to claim the mantle of Zinn’s work has an unenviable task ahead of them. But when SF luminaries John Joseph Adams and Victor LaValle — both of whom have produced top-quality works — announced a short story collection whose title is an homage to Zinn, we were very excited. 

Given the provocative and timely premise of A People’s Future Of The United States, we approached the collection of stories with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the collection as a whole failed to live up to the grand ideas described by the editors.

The book’s introduction is one of the strongest parts of the collection. Over the course of eight pages, Adams sets out the premise of the work, and alludes to the fact that many of the same omissions in mainstream historical narratives are reflected in how we imagine possible futures. Like all good

Even the cover of A People's
Future includes the shadow
of the word "History."
(Image via Goodreads) 

introductions, it encourages the reader to keep reading. 

By definition, collections provide access to a variety of works and it’s rare, perhaps even impossible, to expect that all readers will universally enjoy every contribution. Our book club enjoyed Sam J. Miller’s excellent parable about surveillance, privacy and the policing of heteronormative behaviours. Omar L. Akkad’s harrowing story about internment camps will stay with readers. G. Willow Wilson’s takedown of the privatization agenda is exactly the sort of work we had hoped to read when we picked up this volume. Seanan McGuire’s story includes a ray of hope and helps enrich the anthology.

Questions of race, class and gender are important to explore and have all-too-often been ignored in science fiction. 

We would argue that because science fiction is an inherently political genre, it is of paramount importance to create inclusive futures we can believe in. Some of the stories in this volume do indeed ably tackle topics of race, class and gender. But the topic of labour is almost entirely neglected. 

It is disappointing that an anthology that so explicitly aims to address cultural blindspots has reproduced one itself. 

In comparison, the index to Zinn’s classic history book includes a full page of references to organized labour movements. At a rough estimate, 30 per cent of the book deals with the struggles of traditional union movement organizing, and workers rights are integral to much of the rest of the text. 

Zinn examines at length the general strikes of 1934, 1936, 1938. He tackles women’s roles in the

Howard Zinn's book talks about Joe Hill
and the Industrial Workers Of The World.
(Image via Wikipedia)

labour movement, both prior to the Wagner Act, and afterwards. He talks about how women used the union movement to affect change long before there was an organized feminist movement. He chronicles organized labour’s transition from being mostly indifferent (or antagonistic) to race relations to becoming allies of the civil rights movement. He tackles the philosophical questions that drove a wedge between the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the American Federation of Labour (AFL) in the 1930s. 

It is, in our minds, staggering to think that a book positioned as the spiritual heir to A People’s History Of The United States could completely ignore the role of labour in class and other struggles. It’s not as if issues related to workers’ rights in the United States have been solved. 

Relatedly, some of the stories didn’t seem to exist in a “People’s Future” at all, but rather in a fantastical alternate universe that has little connection to the political environment framing this collection. Celestial beings with snakes growing from their heads and dragons are fun to read about but we found it hard to make a connection to a future United States in at least a few of the stories in this collection. Even when we liked the stories individually, the fantastical elements put them at odds with the idea of a real-world “Future Of The United States.” 

In standard texts about history, labour had been ignored; it didn't fit in with military or great man history. Zinn changed the focus and brought labour to the centre. This collection failed to do that for science fiction.

There are significant current labour struggles that are going to define whatever future people in the United States will share: the fight against precarious employment, the tensions inherent within two-tiered union contracts, evolving questions around scope-of-work issues to name a few. This is an area that is rife with dramatic science fictional potential, but is being neglected in the genre. 

With slightly different editorial choices, A People’s Future Of The United States could have been an essential text for progressive science fiction fans. As it is, we have a short story collection with good stories in it, but which is less than the sum of its parts.

Labour on screen in science fiction: Fritz to Boots

This is the third of a three-part blog post about the historical invisibility of organized labour in science fiction, as well as recent works that address this absence. In the first two parts, we examined prose works both negative and positive. An additional post includes a list of all labour unions we are aware of in science fiction works. 

Film is a medium that can help construct a tolerant, diverse, and informed society. It’s no surprise, then, that the first shots of the first movie camera were focused on workers and on work. For 45 seconds, director Louis Lumière documented the comings and goings of factory workers in his 1895 movie “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory.”

Workers and labour are recurring themes
in early movies, including the 1927
Fritz Lang classic Metropolis.
(Image via IMDB.com)

Employment has been a ubiquitous subject in film — and in science fiction film — but worker organizing has again been neglected.

Some of the earliest science fiction movies feature clashes between workers and automation. From the now-lost 1895 short movie The Mechanical Butcher to Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic Metropolis, filmmakers reflected the concerns of an era that was experiencing rapid industrialization as well as violent actions taken against the working class.

Possibly because of political sensitivities, many of these films made no overt mention of a labour union, but in Metropolis, the workers assert their rights through something similar to anarcho-syndicalist collective action, which may make it the IWW of labour movies.

This treatment of labour and labour unions as a source of strife continues in cinema over the next several decades, though overt union representation is rare. Workers might revolt in a chaotic manner in a science fiction film (as in Stargate, Planet of the Apes or Solo: A Star Wars Story), but they are rarely organized — or effective — in their actions.

The first unmistakable labour union in science fiction cinema that we were able to find is the Textile

The Man In The White Suit may be the
first science fiction movie to have been
nominated for an Academy Award in a
major category, earning a nod for
adapted screenplay.
(Image via Guardian.co.uk)

and Garment Workers Union depicted in the 1951 Ealing Studios comedy The Man In The White Suit. The film revolves around the invention of an indestructible fabric by a mild-mannered chemist played by Sir Alec Guinness, and the subsequent attempts by business and labour unions to suppress the invention. The depiction of unions in this movie is broad and largely inaccurate, depicting them as collaborating with management and encouraging industrial sabotage.

Despite these inaccuracies about how unions operate, we will be endorsing The Man In The White Suit for 1952 Retro Hugos, . It is in most ways a superb and thoughtful piece of science fiction about the introduction of a new technology, and is elevated by witty dialogue and star-worthy performances (Guinness was nominated for an Academy Award that year for a different comedy from the same studio).

Most other labour unions depicted on screen in science fiction up until the 1990s relegate the labour conflict to a tertiary storyline. In Robocop, the government’s decision to deploy the title character is driven by a police union strike. In the real world, in most North American jurisdictions, police officers are unable to strike because they are deemed to be ‘essential services,’ but in the dystopian future depicted in Robocop, police services have been privatized and are now run by the corporation Omni Consumer Products. Because the police are no longer public servants, they are able to (legally) walk off the job.

One aspect of Robocop that is worth noting is that the strike has been engineered by the corporation, the CEO of which deliberately withholds adequate resources (police vehicles and equipment) and acts in bad faith when it comes to pensions and wages. The strike is therefore shown as justified, but when push comes to shove, the most heroic police officers Anne Lewis, Alex Murphy, and Warren Reid all cross the picket line.

During the climactic scenes of the movie, the striking workers come to the rescue of Robocop,

To quote the CEO of OCP, "This strike
can be useful to us." Robocop may
not entirely woke to labour rights,
but it does have thoughtful satire
about privatization of public services.
(Image via Youtube.com)

showing that they are more concerned with doing their jobs than they are their own livelihoods. It is unsatisfying that workers’ rights questions remain unresolved in the movie — the strike is ended but wages, pensions, and funding are all unaddressed.

Robocop presents us with a prescient warning about the low-wage agenda that is marketed under the term ‘privatization,’ but its depiction of worker organizing and worker solidarity is sadly lacking.

There are at least two prominent portrayals of labour organizing in mid-1990s science fiction television series: Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. They offered very different — but equally unsatisfying — portrayals of labour organizing.

Babylon 5’s episode 'By Any Means Necessary' shows a labour movement that is belligerent and badly led into a violent dockworkers’ strike — only the unconventional thinking of the station’s military governor prevents the situation’s violence from escalating. 

Two years later, in Deep Space Nine’s episode 'Bar Association,' we are shown an example of solidarity organizing to address the plight of underpaid waiters and waitresses in Quark’s Bar. Once the employer has compromised on wages, however, it is suggested that a union is ‘no longer needed.’ In both of these examples, the labour movement is shown as being an unruly rabble whose actions need to be kept in check.

The low point in televised science fiction’s portrayal of labour may have been 'Dirty Hands,' a third season episode of Battlestar Galactica. The ‘villains’ of the episode are workers who conduct a work

There's a term for workers whose right
to stop working has been taken away
through state-sanctioned violence.
(Image via IMDB.com) 

slowdown in an attempt to negotiate safer working conditions. The episode’s resolution features the ‘protagonist’ Admiral Adama arresting the union leader and threatening execution of non-compliant workers. This protagonist specifically promises that the union leader's wife will be the first one to be 'put against the bulkhead and shot.'

In the labour movement, this behaviour might be described as unfair bargaining practices.

As the product of a collaborative and corporatized structure, television might be a compromised medium when it comes to offering nuanced depictions of class struggle. Published text narratives — though subject to some editorial controls — are usually credited to a single author with a greater level of intellectual freedom and interest in a personal brand. Because a single author is better able to take personal responsibility for their ideas and their words, they are less likely to be constrained in what they say.

Last year, two very different examples of labour union depictions in science fiction hit the screens, and were surprisingly positive portrayals. The last two episodes of South Park’s most recent season 'Unfulfilled / Bike Parade' features a storyline about employees at an Amazon warehouse who decide to assert their right to a safe workplace in the wake of an accident. Although South Park is as irreverent in this episode as you’d expect it to be, the plight of the workers — and the tensions between picketers and picket-line crossers — are handled surprisingly well.

A very different example — but even more satisfying — was Boots Riley’s directorial debut Sorry

Boots Riley's Sorry To Bother You
shows the tensions and conundrums
faced by union members and organizers
while trying to assert their workplace rights.
 (Image via WorkingClassPerspectives)

To Bother You. A surreal workplace comedy with science fictional elements, Sorry To Bother You uses a story about the unionization of a call centre to explore larger themes about worker solidarity, the erosion of middle-class incomes, and the hyper-competitiveness encouraged by corporate culture and capitalism more broadly, pitting one worker against another. This may be one of the finest examples of labour union depiction in science fiction to date.

Overall, society’s (and science fiction’s) failure to imagine new forms of economic organization reinforces the neoliberal paradigm. Given science fiction’s speculative mandate, this is even more pronounced in the genre and especially its cinema and television (which reach a wider audience than literary forms). The marginalization of unions in science fiction is significant — and symptomatic. As Mark McCutcheon and Bob Barnetson argue in their paper Resistance Is Futile, themes that are omitted from popular culture are often consigned to not merely to impossibility, but to unthinkability.

Imagining the future of organized labour (part two of three)

This is the second of a three-part blog post about the historical invisibility of organized labour in science fiction, as well as recent works that address this absence. In the first part, we examined prose works published up to 1980, in this blog post we examine prose works from 1980 up to the present. A third blog post examines  science fiction television and cinema that depicts labour unions.

In December of last year, Wired magazine invited eight prominent science fiction authors to tackle an

As workplaces are changing, how workers
organize to assert rights will change also.
(Image via Bloomberg.)

interesting question: “What is the future of work?”

While many of the resulting stories explore important challenges that are likely to shape our work lives, and are well worth reading, it is interesting that none of the authors even touched on how workers organize themselves to assert their rights. There is not one mention of “unions,” nor of “solidarity” or “collective bargaining.”

But while unions and the struggle for labour rights are still significantly underrepresented within the genre, the past three decades have seen the blossoming of a small but significant school of labour-aware science fiction that is worthy of discussion.

We have been compiling a list of labour representation in science fiction, and it is obvious to us that there is a growing interest in projecting a future of organized labour. As examples, we would encourage you to read some recent works by Cory Doctorow, Alex Wells, Allen Steele, Madeline Ashby, Adam Rakunas, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Ken MacLeod.

Depictions of labour unions that appear in science fiction published over the past two decades show a significantly greater understanding of how unions operate than is evident in stories from previous decades.

We would suggest that labour awareness within science fiction is in no small part generational. The authors who wrote science fiction during the first ascendency of the genre in the 1940s and 1950s had come of age in an era of strong union power, when New Deal policies were creating an expanding middle class and mass prosperity.

During those years, it was easy to assume that broadly shared prosperity would continue into the

The University of Trantor's faculty
association almost certainly provided
good health and dental benefits.
(image via Goodreads)

future; most of the characters in the high-tech Galactic Empire of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation are middle-class, and it is only once barbarism returns to the galaxy that wealth inequality appears to rise.

But children growing up in the 1970s would learn a different set of assumptions. During those years, for America’s middle class, the future seemed to be atrophying. America was embroiled in an ugly war. The moon landings were over, income inequality had begun to increase, and the labour union movement was being systematically undermined.

This precariousness of the existence of the middle class would be reflected in the despair of cyberpunk, as well as in the activism of the Scottish socialist wave of science fiction.

As the people who read science fiction in the 1970s began writing their own science fiction in the 1980s and 1990s, labour’s reappraisal in science fiction starts to appear.

Allen Steele’s 1989 debut novel Orbital Decay is notable as being one of the earliest works in this (labour-aware) era of science fiction. It offers a depiction of construction labourers building an orbital station under hazardous conditions. While Steele’s work doesn’t delve into the political framework that has enabled this union to exist, or under what legal jurisdiction space construction might fall, his novel does explore how union protection can help ensure safer workplaces by giving workers the right to refuse unsafe work.

Slightly later, the 1996 novel Night Sky Mine by Melissa Scott is a cyberpunk work that subverts the sub-genre by showing that corporate power is not inescapable, and featuring a labour union that helps ensure fairer wages.

If stories like these were a significant departure from almost any science fiction featuring labour unions in the 1950s or 1960s, then it might also be noted that the labour movement of the 1990s and 2000s was one that had been radically transformed.

In the wake of several setbacks for labour unions — the destruction of the PATCO union in 1981, the

The air traffic controllers' strike of 1981,
and the subsequent disbanding of the
union is one of the most significant
moments in labour history. 

creation of NAFTA, the UK miners strike in 1984-85 — it became more difficult to imagine the labour movement as menacing.

At the same time, numerous labour unions were tackling internal governance and structural issues that had marginalized segments of their membership. Many labour unions found common cause with equity-seeking groups such as the women’s movement, anti-Apartheid activists, and the gay rights movement.

It is easier to write positive portrayals of labour unions when labour movements are doing more good for more people.

Cory Doctorow has been one of the leading lights of the genre’s reappraisal of the role of employment in society and the relationship between workers and employers. Tackling such subjects as employment precarity, labour mobility, and income inequality, Doctorow’s work consistently shows a strong understanding of the labour union world.

Of particular note is his 2010 novel For The Win which depicts a unionization drive amongst workers

Union organizing in the
future is a subject that
provides narrative tension.
(Image via Goodreads)

who are paid to gather resources in a World Of Warcraft-style online game. This depiction shows the necessity of worker organization in the face of capital overreach, and is informed by knowledge of the systemic flaws in traditional labour organizing.

Madeline Ashby’s novel Company Town may be better-known outside of the science fiction community than within, as it was a Canada Reads selection in 2017. Telling the story of a character who works as a labour union staff member is rare, and it provides an opportunity for Ashby to examine aspects of the labour movement that are almost never talked about — like the quotidien work of helping ensure the safety of individual members and providing employment services. Because the protagonist works for a union of sex workers, her story helps illustrate an important purpose for labour organizing in the first place: protection of the most vulnerable workers.

Such protections show up repeatedly in recent works that focus on unionization drives. Alex Wells’ 2017 debut novel Hunger Makes the Wolf and its sequel focus on mining workers on a remote world. Their attempt to tackle the corporation’s exploitative practices through union organizing builds on a depiction of management’s divide-and-conquer tactics and deftly illustrates the difficulty of dealing with corporate loyalist employees. Although the goal of empowering workers is portrayed as being difficult, Wells makes it clear that working as a collective is worthwhile and achievable.

Former Republican congressional candidate and author Lou Antonelli devoted a significant section of his 2016 novel Another Girl, Another Planet to the depiction of an labour board appeal on a Martian colony. At issue in the hearing are scope-of-work issues between a highly skilled and technically competent unionized workforce, and an employer who has used robot labour in violation of the union contract. It is shown that the union is not only in the right on legal grounds, but that there were important safety-related reasons for the scope-of-work clauses in the contract.

This depiction is particularly noteworthy because of Antonelli’s nuanced understanding of the work done by labour union representatives. Scope-of-work negotiations and labour board hearings are not as high-profile as organizing drives or work stoppages such as strikes, but they are a vital part of how union representation can promote workers’ rights.

When asked on Twitter about this subplot, Antonelli explained the positive depiction of the union, “even on a space colony, there will be practical labor issues to be addressed. A space colony isn't built by magic.”

Science fiction’s ability to imagine new social orders is one of the genre’s great strengths. But as Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek once noted, it sometimes seems easier for authors to imagine the end of the world, than it does for them to imagine alternatives to unfettered neoliberal capitalism.

Žižek’s observation may still hold some truth. But the genre is experiencing a wave of labour-aware science fiction authors that are challenging dominant ideas surrounding the nature of employment and the relationship between capital and worker. This gives us hope for the future of employment.

Imagining the future of organized labour (part one of three)

List of unions.

This is the first of a three-part blog post about the historical invisibility of organized labour in science fiction. The second post, was published in mid-February explores recent works that address this notable absence. A third blog post examines labour unions in science fiction TV and movies. These articles could not have been completed without the help of science fiction historian Alec Nevala-Lee and labour researchers Mark McCutcheon and Bob Barnetson. 

Science fictional narratives are filled with depictions of employment.

Whether it’s Gaal Dornick taking a job with the mathematics department at the University of Trantor, or Robinette Broadhead leaving his job in the protein mines to pursue an opportunity with the Gateway corporation, the genre is rife with examples of standard capitalist employment relationships.

Often given less focus, however, are the rights of those workers, and the means by which those rights are asserted. When it comes to employment, the majority of science fiction offers either utopian visions in which everyone has a share in societal prosperity, or dystopian nightmares in which the elites have all the power and workers are crushed underfoot.

For example, neither Star Trek nor Babylon 5 ever explore the reason why productivity gains of new

The character Robocop crosses a picket
line to appease the corporate masters
of a privatized police department.
In the labour movement, he would be
called a 'scab.'
(Image via DenOfGeek.com)

technologies have not been concentrated into the wealth of an ultra-elite. Conversely, neither Altered Carbon nor Neuromancer offer explanations for why the working class has failed to organize solidarity-driven or democratic responses to societal problems.

Few of us have memories of the might of the North American union movement in the 1940s and 1950s. It was this movement that accorded workers stability and living wages that increased on par with productivity gains. It is probably this era of increasing income equality that made expansive utopian imaginings without explanation seem plausible.

In 1951, famed science fiction editor John W. Campbell wrote to H. Beam Piper, one of his regular writers, asking the author to tone down anti-union language in the story Day Of The Moron. He did so not because he supported the labour movement, but because he was afraid of offending members of the printers’ union that his magazine, Astounding, relied upon.

At their peak in 1954, unions represented almost a third of workers in the United States, and it was easy to take their existence — and their action as a counterbalance to the power of capital — for granted. Even employees in non-union workplaces enjoyed gains because employers had to keep up with union shops to retain and recruit labour.

But despite their prevalence in society, labour unions were largely absent from science fictional narratives during the Golden Age, and their few portrayals in the genre are usually either comedic or antagonistic.

As labour activist and science fiction author Eric Flint pointed out at WorldCon76, the major

At Worldcon 76 in San Jose, Eric Flint,
Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Cory
Doctorow discussed the dearth of
labour unions in science fiction.
(Photo by Kateryna Barnes)

contributors to the development of science fiction — from the dawn of the Golden Age of Science Fiction through this era of union organizing and stability — were largely drawn from academic circles or the upper middle class. Despite working for a living, these authors and editors did not see themselves as part of the proletariat, and thus based their narratives on assumptions that their privileged working relationships allowed them to hold.

Arthur C. Clarke’s scientist and astronaut heroes exist in a rarefied academic bubble that’s divorced from more typical job markets. Even when tackling a worker’s revolution in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Heinlein defined the conflict in terms of nationalism rather than solidarity. Ray Bradbury seems to be largely unaware of conflicts about labour conditions. And the Amalgamated Union in Alfred Bester’s classic The Demolished Man is largely a force for ill due to corrupt leadership.

Of all the big-name authors of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, special notice should be given to Isaac Asimov’s troubled relationship to organized labour. Despite the fact that Asimov came from a working-class background, his portrayals of workers is often problematic and condescending - In Caves of Steel (1954), workers who are displaced by robots are shown to be semi-literate at best, using pidgin like “‘Maybe it’s time the gov’min’ reelized robots ain’t the only things on Earth.”

If his portrayal of individual labourers is dismissive, his depiction of organized labour is actively hostile: In Robbie (1940), the labour movement forms an unholy alliance with religious fanatics to oppose progress in the form of robots; in the Foundation saga, nepotistic labour guilds are in part responsible for the collapse of the Empire; and to make his antipathy more obvious, he wrote the story Strikebreaker (1957), in which the heroic lead character forces a worker to accept employer demands.

A hero to many left-wing science
fiction fans, Isaac Asimov had feet
of clay on some subjects, including
workers' rights.
(Image by Rowena Morrill) 

It is disappointing to note that Asimov, member of the Futurians and an author often perceived as a progressive voice, might have had such a significant blind spot.

Even one of the most labour relations aware works of that era, Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth’s comedic novel The Space Merchants, is far from a paragon. The novel introduces us to the United Slime-Mold Protein Workers of Panamerica, a union that both exploits its membership through unfair fees, and is unable to stand up against the corporation’s might.

The progressive New Wave of science fiction of the late 1960s may have addressed the genre’s blind spots around race and gender, but when the subjects of class and labour were examined, it was usually with a sense of despair. This viewpoint is understandable in the context of the times: after declining for most of the previous four decades, American inequality was on the rise; trust in liberal democratic political institutions was being undermined; and the worst aspects of hierarchical business unions were on full display through such figures as Jimmy Hoffa and Carlo Gambino.

Those few representations of labour-rights organizations are presented with either antipathy or comedic disdain. When Douglas Adams introduces the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Professional Thinking Persons in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the union’s representatives Vroomfondel and Majikthise are actively fighting against knowledge and research. Arnie Kott, the antagonist in Philip K. Dick’s Martian Time-Slip, is a broad caricature of a union leader and is presented as bigoted, corrupt, egotistical, and thin-skinned.

One notable exception to this anti-union sentiment was found in Larry Niven's 1966 short story A Relic Of Empire, in which unions are described as a necessity

Depictions of workers rights and the struggle to defend those rights are few and far between by the

Has anyone from the Occupational
Health and Safety department
completed an ergonomic assessment
 of this power armor?
(Image via TheVerge) 

late 1970s and 1980s. Employees of the Weyland-Yutani corporation in Alien have little-to-no recourse when it comes to their right to refuse unsafe work. Neoliberal assumptions around employer-employee relations are reflected in more and more depictions of independent contractors in the genre. Johnny Mnemonic is a precarious worker, as are most denizens of the sprawl.

It could be argued that the cyberpunk subgenre is the apotheosis of despair over the state of workers’ rights. In The Diamond Age, the thete (lower-class) citizens have absolutely no rights, let alone employment rights, while workers like Molly in Neuromancer are even stripped of their right to remember the tasks they perform.

In these corporatist dystopias, workers are either unwilling or unable to organize in opposition to these measures, and what few escapes from serfdom exist are accomplished through heroic personal narratives. This view of the struggle for workers’ rights can be seen again in Neil Bloekamp’s 2013 box-office dud Elysium, in which a disenfranchised worker fights an unfair system, but does so on his own through violent action, rather than by organizing his workplace.

Interestingly, even in Ursula LeGuin’s exploration of anarcho-syndicalism The Dispossessed, workers rights are defended in neither the capitalist society of Anarres, nor on the anarchic world of Urras. On the latter world, the protagonist is forced into manual labour due to societal strictures, while on the former he’s part of a labour protest that’s violently put down. In neither world do we see an example of an effective labour movement.

As Mark A. McCutcheon and Bob Barnetson argue in their 2016 paper Resistance is Futile: On The

"THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE!
YOU WILL BE PRIVATIZED!
PRI-VA-TIZE! PRI-VA-TIZE!"
(Image via BBC.com)

Under-Representation of Unions in Science Fiction, “The paucity of realistic representations of unions in SF thus has political implications: it reinforces the absence of alternatives to ... neoliberal capitalism.” This observation is mirrored by Margaret Thatcher’s famous slogan, “There Is No Alternative.”

The rigid adherence to one paradigm might be understandable in memetic (non-genre) fiction that strives to represent the world as it is, but in a genre like science fiction, which purports to be based on imagination, it is deeply disappointing. As Cory Doctorow noted this summer at a Worldcon76 panel on the working class in science fiction “There is no sentiment more antithetical to science fiction than ‘there is no alternative,’ … what we do as science fiction authors is exactly to imagine alternatives.”

Thankfully, a new generation was about to do exactly that.

Part two of this blog post, covering a renewed interest in organized labour in science fiction in the 1990s and 2000s, was posted on February 18, 2019. 

Organized labour in science fiction

Organized labour in science fiction   LIST AS SORTABLE EXCEL DOCUMENT   Additional suggestions are welcome. This list is to supplement our blog posts on labour in SF: part one, part two, part three   Terminology: “Business union” is defined as an organization that is legally certified by the government to negotiate on behalf of a group of workers. “Solidarity union” is defined as a group of workers organizing themselves on a grassroots basis to seek concessions from an employer. “Guild union” is defined as a group of workers whose labour negotiating ability stems from their near-monopoly on a particular set of skills. “Primary depiction” is defined as union activity being the focus of the story. These are stories in which organizing workers or workers asserting their rights is crucial to the events depicted.  “Secondary depiction” is defined as union activity being important to the story, but not the primary focus. This is often an important plot point.  “Tertiary depiction” is defined as anything that is not substantive. This can range from a one-sentence reference, to a piece of world-building that is not crucial to the plot.   (Note: This list excludes inherently criminal organizations such as the Assassin's Guild from Discworld, the Guild of Thieves from Robert Silberberg and Randall Garrett's A Little Intelligence or the Traitor's Guild from James Blish's A Style in Treason.)
Year	Title / Author	Union Model	Qualitative Depiction	Extent of depiction
1890	News From Nowhere – William Morris [Novel]	Solidarity union (Manufacturing)	Positive depiction – worker organizing leads to utopia	Secondary
1897	Log of the Flying Fish – Harry Collingwood [Novel]	Solidarity union – (shipbuilding)	Negative depiction – character complains at length about how unions impede production.	Tertiary
1899	The Sleeper Awakes – H.G. Wells [Novel]	Business union – (aeronauts)	Mixed depiction – Unions have made great gains for workers in the future, but have become an institutional power that can be misused by union leadership.	Secondary
1908	The Iron Heel – Jack London [Novel]	Business union (Various)	Negative depiction – unions end up siding with fascism.	Secondary
1910	Newæra: A Socialist Romance, with a Chapter on Vaccination - Edward Geisler Herbert [Novel]	Business unions (various)	Negative depiction – socialist utopia collapses	Tertiary
1913	Engineer Menni –Alexander Bogdanov [Novel]	Business unions in a workers’ state (engineering and mining)	Positive depiction – Union activism and industrial action act as catalysts of the revolutionary change in Martian society.	Secondary
1914	The Five Years Of Silence – A.C. Michael [Short Story]	Business unions (manufacturing, resource extraction, construction)	Positive depiction – Union fights major battles for basic labour rights.	Primary
1914	The Dream of Debs – Jack London [Short Story]	Business union (General)	Negative depiction – organized labour depicted as ruinous and tyrannical	Primary
1923	Nordenholt’s Million – J.J. Connington [Novel]	Solidarity union (General)	Mixed depiction – unions raise some objection to techno-fascism, but are crushed.	Tertiary
1925	Alice’s Egg Plant – Walter Elias Disney [Short movie]	Business union (Chickens)	Negative depiction – Union is depicted as irrational. Workers are easily fooled into scab labour.	Primary
1929	The Defeat of Jonathan Govers - Volodymyr Vladko [Short story]	Business union (Manufacturing)	Positive depiction – Union is on strike for legitimate grievances.	Primary
1937	The Company or the Weather – Miles J. Breuer [Short story]	Business union (Farmers)	Neutral depiction – Union just exists and works for members.	Secondary
1938	The Toys Go On Strike – Enid Byton [Children’s Book]	Solidarity union (Toys)	Positive depiction – Union stands up to mistreatment of workers.	Primary
1940	Robbie - Isaac Asimov   [Short Story]	Business union (Manufacturing)	Negative depiction - Antagonistic to progress.	Secondary
1940	The Roads Must Roll - Robert A. Heinlein   [Short Story]	Business union (Transportation)	Mixed - Union gained some big objectives in the past, but Some union members are conned into destroying the roads	Primary
1941	A Gnome There Was – Henry Kuttner [Short Story]	Solidarity union (mining)	Positive depiction – Union organizer shows gnomes that monarchy exploits them.	Primary
1942	We Print The Truth – Anthony Boucher [Short Story]	Business union (printing)	Neutral depiction – mentions existence of machinists union	Tertiary
1942	Breakdown – Jack Williamson [Short Story]	Business union (Engineers and spacemen)	Negative depiction – Union power is stifling and overreaching	Primary
1943	The Iron Standard - Lewis Padgett (Kuttner and Moore) [Short Story]	Business unions (Undersea Dredgers and Air Transport)	Mixed – Some unions described as “fulfilling a purpose,” while others are “graft-ridden”	Secondary
1944	The Traders / The Wedge (Foundation) - Isaac Asimov   [Short Story]	Guild union (Atomic engineers)	Negative depiction - Nepotistic and anti-intellectual.	Secondary
1946	Slaves of the Lamp – Leo Zagat [Novel]	Business union (Psychoneers union)	Negative depiction	Secondary
1949	The Green Forest – A.E. Van Vogt [Short Story]	Business union (Spacement’s Union)	Negative depiction	Secondary
1950	The Masters of Sleep – L. Ron Hubbard   [Novel]	Business union (Friends of Russia Communist International Objectors Social Hall Lumberjacks Local No.261)	Negative depiction – union is working to advance the agenda of a foreign nation	Secondary
1951	The Man In The White Suit - Ealing Studios   [Movie]	Business union (Textiles)	Negative depiction - Antagonistic to progress.	Primary
1951	Day Of The Moron - H. Beam Piper   [Short Story]	Business union (Atomic engineers)	Negative depiction - Protects unqualified workers. Bureaucratic and obstructionist.	Primary
1952	Another Kind – Anthony West [Novel]	Business union (Railways and Various)	Mixed depiction – Unions call a general strike over legitimate grievances, but this leads to civil war.	Secondary
1952	The Space Merchants - Frederick Pohl & Cyril Kornbluth   [Novel]	Business union (Agricultural)	Negative depiction - Labour union exploits worker.	Secondary
1952	Three Worlds in Shadow – Joe Gibson [Short Story]	Business union (Robot Operators Local 982)	Mixed depiction – Union war.	Primary
1952	The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester   [Novel]	Business union (Unspecified)	Negative depiction - Corrupt union leadership.	Tertiary
1952	Robots of the World! Arise! – Mari Wolf   [Short story]	Solidarity union (Manufacturing)	Negative depiction – Robotic workers strike unreasonably.	Primary
1953	Exploiters End – James Causey [Short story]	Business union (spacecrafters union)	Positive depiction – Union prevents exploitation	Primary
1953	Cue for Quiet – T.L. Sherred [Short Story]	Business union (repair)	Positive depiction – Protagonist is concerned with the plight of unions	Tertiary
1953	The Troublemakers – Poul Anderson	Guild Union (Maintenance)	Negative depiction – part of an autocratic system to keep workers in line	Secondary
1953	Null ABC – H. Beam Piper [Novella]	Solidarity union (Reading)	Mixed depiction – Works to protect rights of skilled workers, but may be unnecessary.	Secondary
1953	The Syndic – Cyril Kornbluth [Novel]	Business union (General)	Mixed depiction – One union is equivalent to organized crime. Other helps revitalize America.	Secondary
1953	Starman Jones – Robert A. Heinlein   [Novel]	Guild union (Transportation)	Negative depiction – Union is anti-meritocratic.	Secondary
1954	Disqualified – Charles L. Fontenay [Short Story]	Business union (Colonists)	Negative depiction – Existence of union means workers are “paid too much”	Tertiary
1954	Backlash – Winston Marks [Short Story]	Business Unions (Multiple, implied that they are trades and arts unions)	Mixed depiction – union leadership is hypocritical, on one hand fighting against indentured servitude, but then using it themselves	Secondary
1954	An Earth Gone Mad – Roger Dee [Short Story]	Business union (Manufacturing)	Negative depiction – Union cares only about the power of cubes.	Secondary
1955	Job Analysis – Jonathan Burke [Short Story]	Business union (Various, but primarily starship construction and manufacturing on Mars)	Mixed depiction — protagonist spends story complaining about union rules, only to discover in a twist ending that he needs union protection.	Primary
1955	The Cartels Jungle – Irving E. Cox [Novelette]	Business union (General – All workers forced to join “Union of Free Workers.”)	Negative depiction – Union depicted as corrupt and authoritarian.	Primary
1955	One-Shot – James Blish [Short Story]	Business union (Longshoremen)	Negative description – Described as corrupt.	Tertiary
1955	Full Cycle - Clifford D. Simak [Novella]	Business union (General industrial)	Mixed depiction – Criticizes current state of labour, but suggests it might evolve into something better.	Primary
1955	Nine Men In Time – Noel Loomis [Novella]	Business union (Printers)	Mixed depiction	Secondary
1955	Meeting of the Board – Alan E. Nourse [Novelette]	Business union (Titanium manufacturing)	Negative depiction – Overly powerful unions act irrationally towards management prompting a crisis.	Primary
1956	Wyvernhold – L. Sprague de Camp	Business unions – multiple	Mixed depiction - Story deals with labour rights more generally, but specific class of worker excluded from union participation.	Secondary
1956	Dying To Live - E. C. Tubb [Novelette]	Business unions – Actors, and manufacturing	Mixed depiction – Union has protected workers from pain, and increased employment through scope-of-work arguments, but also can be callous towards individual workers.	Primary
1956	Worlds Without End – Clifford Simak	Business union (general labour)	Negative depiction – Union does not represent best interests of workers.	Primary
1957	Do It Yourself – Milton Lesser [Short Story]	Solidarity union (Farmers)	Positive depiction – Union is banned, but union organizer protagonist helps workers anyhow.	Primary
1957	Edge of the Knife – H. Beam Piper [Short Story]	Business union (academic)	Mixed depiction – union protects employee, but employee might not deserve protection	Teritary
1957	Strikebreaker - Isaac Asimov   [Short Story]	Solidarity union (Waste processing)	Negative depiction - Strike threatens survival of colony.	Primary
1957	The Lineman – Walter Miller Jr.   [Short Story]	Business union (Lavaworkers)	Negative depiction – Union described as “yellow-bellied obscenity.”	Tertiary
1959	Guardian Devil – Robert Silverberg [Novelette]	Business union (unspecified)	Negative depiction – Union leader corrupt and deliberately causes race riots.	Tertiary
1959	Hunter Patrol – H. Beam Piper [Short story]	Business union	Mixed depiction – Conversation between unionist and capitalist	Secondary
1960	Conditions of Employment – Clifford D. Simak	Business union (Space ship workers)	Mixed depiction – Underlying issues of capitalism cannot be solved by labour unions.	Primary
1960	Stress Pattern – Robert Silverberg [Short Story]	Business union (unspecified)	Positive depiction – Union protects jobs and helps people fulfill potential.	Primary
1960	Matchmaker – Charles L. Fontenay [Short Story]	Business union (“psycho-artists”)	Negative depiction – Union expulsion is used to coerce protagonist	Secondary
1960	Divvy Up – Milton Lesser [Short Story]	Business union (bus drivers and medical workers)	Negative depiction – Unions are corrupt and without ethics	Secondary
1960	A Few Miles – Phillip Jose Farmer	Business union	Negative depiction – Union causes headaches.	Tertiary
1960	The Apprentice - James White   [Short Story]	Business union (Department store)	Positive depiction - Employee has job protection	Secondary
1962	Subversive – Mack Reynolds [Short Story}	Business union  (Retail)	Mixed depiction – Reynolds critical of capitalism, including organizations like unions that sell labour	Tertiary
1962	Mercenary (As well as other Joe Mauser stories such as Sweet Dreams, Sweet Princes (1963) and The Earth War (1963)) – Mack Reynolds [Short story – Expanded to novel in 1968]	Business union (Mercenaries)	Negative depiction – Unions depicted as part of the capitalist status quo	Secondary
1962	Last Year’s Grave Undug – Chan Davis [Short Story]	Business unions (multiple)	Mixed depiction – Union is implied to have helped reduce inequality. But also corrupt former union president is brutal leader in post-apocalyptic.	Secondary
1963	Stand By – Philip K. Dick [Short Story]	Business Union (civil servants)	Negative depiction – Union is corrupt and entrenched.	Secondary
1963	Omicron - Ugo Gregoretti [Movie]	Business union (Factory workers)	Positive depiction – Alien organises labour collective.	Primary
1964	What The Dead Men Say – Philip K. Dick [Novella]	Business union	Negative depiction	Secondary
1964	Decadence – Romain Gary [Short Story]	Business union (General)	Negative depiction – Union leader is a sadist and a serial killer.	Primary
1964	The Pushcart War – Jean Merrill [Novel]	Solidarity union (pushcart workers) Note: some describe this as a business association between worker-owned businesses, rather than a labour union.	Positive depiction – worker organizing helps defeat monopolistic practices	Primary
1964	Martian Time-Slip – Philip K. Dick   [Novel]	Business union (Plumbing)	Negative depiction – Corrupt union leadership.	Secondary
1964	No Vinism Like Chauvinism – John Jakes	Business union (Entertainment and War, which are the same in this future)	Mixed depiction	Secondary
1964	Sacheverell – Avram Davidson [Short Story]	Business union (Circus)	Positive depiction	Tertiary
1965	Calling Dr. Clockwork – Ron Goulart	Business Union – (“Food Scenters”)	Positive depiction – Union ensures that protagonist maintains employment during illness.	Secondary
1965	Subspace Explorers – E.E. “Doc” Smith [Novel]	Business union (Copper mining)	Negative depiction - union is antagonist. Book promotes "Enlightened Self-Interest" which is at odds with collective action.	Secondary
1966	A Relic Of Empire – Larry Niven   [Short Story]	General statement about unions.	Positive depiction – Described as ‘necessary.’	Tertiary
1967	The Rival Rigelians – Mack Reynolds [Novel]	Solidarity union vs. employer-dominated union (Colonial labour union)	Positive depiction – workers find solidarity in struggle for real worker representation	Secondary
1967	The Defector – Olga Larionova	Business union (writers)	Positive depiction	Secondary
1968	The Day of the Coastwatch – Philip McCutchen [Novel]	Business union – Various	Negative depiction – Labour movement is depicted as decadent and in-league with authoritarian government.	Secondary
1969	The Freak – PG Wyal [Short Story]	Solidarity union (beggars)	Positive depiction – striking workers seek equitable wages	Primary
1970	Alien Island – T.L. Sherred	Business Union (Machinists)	Positive depiction – protagonist is unionized worker	Tertiary
1971	Holdholtzer’s Box – David R. Bunch [Short Story]	Business union (manufacturing)	Positive depiction – Employer praises union shop because “happy workers make better workers.”	Tertiary
1972	Seventy Years of Decpop – Philip Jose Farmer [Short story]	Business union (Canners)	Negative depiction - union members vote against their own interests	Tertiary
1972	Merchant of Venus – Frederik Pohl [Short Story]	Business union (mining)	Negative depiction – Union collects excess fees	Tertiary
1972	Clone – Richard Cowper [Novel]	Business unions (multiple)	Negative depiction – Government uses union violence to reduce population.	Secondary
1973	Deaf Listener - Rachel Cosgrove Payes [Short story]	Guild union (telepaths)	Positive depiction – Union works to prevent genocide	Secondary
1974	Flow My Tears The Policeman Said – Philip K. Dick [Novel]	Business union (musicians)	Neutral depiction – Union simply exists (protagonist is a member)	Tertiary
1974	Family Program - J. A. Lawrence [Short story]	Business union (Engineering)	Mixed depiction	Secondary
1974	The Monster of Peladon – Dr. Who [Television Episode]	Business union (Resource extraction)	Mixed depiction – Workers have valid concerns, but are pawns in larger political game.	Secondary
1975	The Starcrossed – Ben Bova [Novel]	Business union (multiple)	Negative depiction – unions described as archaic	Tertiary
1975	Survivors – Terry Nation [Television Program]	Business union	Mixed depiction – In a post-apocalyptic setting a labour union leader tries to take over the world. But still stands for worker solidarity.	Secondary
1976	Galactic Medal of Honour – Mack Reynolds [Short Story]	One big union (copper miner, IWW, more)	Positive depiction	Secondary
1977	Exiles to Glory – Jerry Pournelle) [Novel]	Business union – (Engineering)	Positive depiction – union seen as a way out of poverty in the “welfare slums”	Secondary
1977	Wobblies From Space – Leslie Fish [Song]	Business union (Starship workers)	Negative depiction - Union rules make it impossible for starship to run efficiently.	Primary
1977	Salamander – Leigh Kennedy [Short Story]	Business union (lunar construction)	Positive depiction - worker wants union so that workplace problems are dealt with	Tertiary
1978	Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams   [Radio/Novel/Television]	Guild Union (Philosophers)	Negative depiction – Antagonistic towards progress, interested primarily in “gravy train.”	Tertiary
1978	1985 – Anthony Burgess [Novel]	Business Union (General)	Negative depiction – Unions depicted as oppressive and anti-freedom.	Primary
1979	Benefits – Zoe Fairbairns [Novel]	Business Union (multiple, general)	Negative depiction – Male-dominated trade unions undermine women’s rights.	Secondary
1979	The Kilohertz War – Alien Worlds   [Radio]	Business Union (Technicians)	Negative depiction – complaints about union striking.	Tertiary
1980	The Lordly Ones – Keith Roberts   [Short Story]	Unions – Multiple	Negative depiction – Apocalypse caused by unions	Tertiary
1981	The Revolution from Rosinante – Alexis A. Gilliland	Business Union (Construction)	Negative depiction – Union officials are obstreperous and intransigent.	Secondary
1981	Highliner – C.J. Cherryh [Short Story]	Business Union (Construction)	Positive depiction – Union fights to protect worker safety	Primary
1983	Out of the Ashes – William W. Johnstone [Novel / Series]	Business Union (Multiple including government workers)	Negative depiction – Labour unions overthrow the government and bring in tyrannical bureaucracy	Secondary
1983	We, The People – Jack C. Haldeman [Short Story]	Business Union (Janitorial)	Positive depiction – Union has won benefits for its members	Primary
1984	Manna – Lee Correy [Novel]	Union (general statement)	Positive depiction – theoretical statement in favour	Tertiary
1984	Silicon Muse – Hilbert Schenk [Novel]	Business union (academic)	Negative Depiction	Tertiary
1985	Five-Twelvthes of Heaven – Melissa Scott [Novel]	Business union (Pilots)	Negative depiction – Union makes it difficult for protagonist to reclaim possessions	Tertiary
1985	Brazil – Terry Gilliam [Movie]	Business union (HVAC)	Negative depiction – Union members are obstructionist and do poor work, while non-union worker (a “scab”) is the only competent worker.	Secondary
1985	Privateers – Ben Bova [Novel]	Business union (crew)	Positive depiction – valuable workers see union as a way to keep their jobs	Tertiary
1986	Watchmen – Alan Moore   [Comic book]	Business Union (Police)	Mixed depiction – 1973 police strike causes violence, but may be justified.	Tertiary
1987	The Time Guardian - Brian Hannant [Movie]	Business Union (Evil Cyborgs)	Negative depiction – Evil Cyborg Trade Unionists try to destroy the last vestiges of humanity.	Secondary
1987	Robocop - Paul Verhoeven   [Movie]	Business Union (Police)	Negative depiction - Heroic characters cross picket line. Quote: "Police officers don't strike."	Primary
1988	Desolation Road – Ian McDonald [Novel]	Solidarity Union – (Steel workers)	Positive depiction- Union forms in response to company killing protesters.	Secondary
1988	The Long Orbit – Mick Farren [Novel]	Business Union	Positive Depiction – Union is key to fighting inequality	Secondary
1988	They Live – John Carpenter   [Movie]	Business Union (Construction)	Mixed depiction – Union is “closed shop” but hires itinerant protagonist anyway.	Tertiary
1989	Orbital Decay - Allen Steele   [Stories / Novel]	Business Union (Construction)	Positive depiction - Union helps ensure safer workplace.	Primary
1990	The Difference Engine – William Gibson and Bruce Sterling [Novel]	Business Union (Mining)	Mixed depiction – Union involved with assassination. But also helps build a better world.	Tertiary
1991	SEAQ and Destroy – Charles Stross [Short Story]	Business Union (Trades)	Mixed depiction – Union calls for general strike in opposition to Soviet Union. But hasty action contributes to global catastrophe.	Tertiary
1992	Heavy Time - CJ Cherryh   [Novel]	Business union (Mining)	Negative depiction - employer-dominated union.	Primary
1992	We Are Not Amused – Laura Resnick [Short Story]	Business union (Sex Workers)	Positive depiction – Helped advance rights of women	Primary
1992	Men At Arms – Terry Pratchett [Novel]	Business union (Sex workers and seamstresses)	Positive depiction – Protects marginalized workers from exploitation.	Secondary NOTE: There are numerous other guilds mentioned in passing in the Discworld novels. There is a full list at Discworld Fandom.
1994	By Any Means Necessary - Babylon 5   [Television]	Business union (Dockworkers)	Mixed depiction - Striking workers are violent, but achieve fairer wages.	Primary
1996	Night Sky Mine - Melissa Scott   [Novel]	Business union (Mining)	Positive depiction - Ensures equitable wages.	Secondary
1996	Bar Association - Deep Space Nine   [Television]	Solidarity union (Service industry)	Mixed depiction - Achieves fairer wages, but must be disbanded because it’s “no longer needed.”	Primary
1998	Freefall - Mark Stanley   [Webcomic]	Business union (Technicians)	Positive depiction – Union membership brings wage benefits to worker.	Tertiary
1999	Against The Tide Of Years – S.M. Stirling   [Novel]	Business union (Dockworkers)	Positive depiction – Protagonist provides help to union trying to support fair wages.	Tertiary
2000	1632 - Eric Flint 1633 – Eric Flint and David Weber 1634: The Baltic War – Eric Flint and David Weber   [Novel / Series]	Business union (Mine workers)	Positive depiction - Organizing prosperous economy.	Secondary (becoming more prominent as the novel series continues.)
2000	Candle - John Barnes   [Novel]	Guild union (Combat)	Positive depiction - Union   provides health, dental and legal coverage.	Secondary
2000	Company Man – Robert Jackson Bennett   [Novel]	Solidarity union (General)	Positive depiction - Union   works to combat inequality.	Secondary
2000	Cosmonaut Keep – Ken MacLeod   [Novel]	Solidarity union (Online workers)	Positive depiction - Balances power of capital.	Secondary
2000	Midnight Robber – Nalo Hopkinson   [Novel]	Solidarity union (Transporation / pedicab drivers)	Positive depiction – fights for fair compensation	Secondary
2000	SimGen Sequence (AKA “Sims”) – F. Paul Wilson [Series of stories]	Solidarity union (manual labour)	Positive depiction – fights for the rights of non-human sentients.	Primary
2000	Perdido Street Station – China Mieville   [Novel]	Business union (Dock workers)	Positive depiction - Unions provide counterbalance to strength of capital.	Secondary
2000	Click, Clack, Moo - Doreen Cronin [Children’s Book]	Solidarity union (Cows)	Positive depiction - Union negotiates fair agreement between cows and farmer in which working conditions are improved (blankets provided to cows so they aren't as cold).	Primary
2001	Bendless Love – Futurama   [TV Episode]	Business union (Manufacturing)	Negative depiction – protagonist is a scab worker. Union is mob-connected and corrupt.	Primary
2004	Star Trek Enterprise – “Storm Front”	Business Union (Construction)	Negative Depiction – Gangsters are tied to the labour movement	Tertiary
2004	Iron Council – China Mieville [Novel]	Business union (Railway workers)	Positive depiction	Primary
2005	Old Man’s War – John Scalzi   [Novel]	Business union (Mining workers)	Negative depiction – Striking workers on the news portrayed as violent.	Tertiary
2006	Small Minded Giants - Oisín McGann [Novel]	Business union (Machinists)	Positive depiction	Secondary
2007	Andas Game – Cory Doctorow [Short Story]	Business union (video game players)	Positive depiction – protects workers from unfair employer abuses	Primary
2007	Safehold – David Weber [Novel series]	Business union (Foundries)	Positive depiction	Tertiary
2007	Dirty Hands - Battlestar Galactica   [Television]	Solidarity union (Mining workers)	Negative depiction - Heroic governor bargains in bad faith by holding gun to the head of a worker.	Primary
2009	The Wind-Up Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi   [Novel]	Guild Union (Animal handlers)	Negative depiction - antagonism towards entrepreneur protagonist.	Secondary
2010	For The Win - Cory Doctorow   [Novel]	Solidarity union (Online workers)	Positive depiction - ensuring workers’ rights.	Primary
2010	Damage Time - Colin Harvey   [Novel]	Guild Union (Sex trade workers)	Negative depiction - Union excludes vulnerable population.	Secondary
2010	Kraken - China Miéville [Novel]	Guild Union (Magical assistants)	Positive depiction	Secondary
2010	The Great Bay – Dale Pendell   [Novel]	Business Union (Electrical workers)	Mixed depiction	Tertiary
2011	The Expanse [Series of Novels] Leviathan Wakes (2011) Caliban’s War (2012) Abbadon’s Gate (2013) Cibola Burn (2014) Nemesis Games (2015) Babylon’s Ashes (2016) Persepolis Rising (2017) Tiamat’s Wrath (2019) Leviathan Falls (2021)	Multiple Business Unions (Resource extraction workers, transportation workers)	Positive depiction – Union integral in democratic governance. Help defend rights of oppressed workers. Provide legal counsel to workers in need.	Secondary
2011	Contagion   [Movie]	Business Union (Nursing)	Negative depiction - Union rules prevent adequate health care for major character.	Secondary
2012	Clean (Mindspace Series of Novels) – Alex Huges [Novel and sequels]	Business unions (Telepaths and police)	Mixed depiction – Union acts to protects its membership, but main character is treated badly.	Secondary
2012	Power Play – Ben Bova [Novel]	Business union (Teachers)	Negative depiction – offhand reference	Tertiary
2012	High Stakes – Naomi Kritzer [Short Story]	Solidarity Union (IWW)	Positive depiction – Union helps fight debt slavery.	Primary
2012	Existence - David Brin   [Novel]	Business Union (Child care workers)	Positive depiction - Union is part of positive and functional workplace.	Tertiary
2012	“The Doctor Is Sin” – Episode of Venture Brothers   [Television]	Business Unions (Machine Workers, Nuclear Engineering and Custodial Super Science Unions)	Mixed depiction – Union has legitimate grievances but are treated as joke.	Secondary
2013	Powder Mage – Brian McClellan [Novel / Series]	Guild union - Unclear	Positive depiction	Tertiary
2013	Phosphorus – Veronica Schanoes   [Short Story]	Solidarity Union & Business Union (Manufacturing, General Labourers)	Positive depiction – Union stands in opposition to unsafe work practices	Primary
2013	Burning Girls – Veronica Schanoes   [Novella]	Solidarity Union (Garment Workers)	Positive depiction – Union stands in opposition to unsafe work practices.	Secondary
2013	Fortune’s Pawn - Rachel Bach   [Novel]	Business Union (Merchants)	Positive depiction - Union provides information to employees.	Tertiary
2013	The Day The Crayons Quit – Drew Daywalt & Oliver Jeffers [Children’s Book]	Solidarity Union (Crayons)	Positive depiction – Union helps improve the working conditions of labourers.	Primary
2014	Cycling to Asylum – Su J. Sokol [Novel]	Business Union (Teachers)	Positive depiction	Tertiary
2014	Unwrapped Sky - Rjurik Davidson [Novel]	Solidarity Union (Factory Workers)	Positive depiction – Unions work against economic inequality	Primary
2014	Climbing the Date Palm – Shira Glassman   [Short Story]	Business Union (Construction)	Positive depiction – Union fights against wage theft.	Primary
2014	Ancillary Sword – Ann Leckie   [Novel]	Solidarity Union (Agricultural)	Positive depiction – Union fights against indentured servitude in tea production operation.	Tertiary
2014	War & Mir Vol. 2: Darkold – Minister Faust   [Novel]	Business union (Teachers)	Positive depiction	Secondary
2014	The Goblin Emperor – Katherine Addison [Novel]	Guild Union (Clockmakers) and Business Union (Municipal Employees)	Positive depiction – Guild proposes  improvement to infrastructure. Business union used as scapegoat by villains.	Tertiary
2015	A Pocket Full of Murder – R.J. Anderson [Novel]	Guild Union (Magic)	Positive depiction – Union helps exonerate protagonist’s father	Secondary
2015	Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen – Lois McMaster Bujold [Novel]	Business Union (Sex Workers)	Positive depiction – Union is created to combat exploitation of vulnerable workers.	Tertiary
2015	C.O.W.L - Kyle Higgins & Alec Siegel	Business union (Superheroes – “Chicago Organized Workers League”)	Mixed depiction – Union is scandal-ridden but well-intentioned.	Primary
2015	Windswept - Adam Rakunas   [Novel]	Business union (Manufacturing)	Positive depiction - ensuring fair wages.	Primary
2015	Bangarang – Killjoys (Reappears throughout series) [TV Episode]	Business union (Resource extraction)	Mixed depiction – Union interferes with protagonists, but also helps vulnerable workers.	Tertiary
2015	All The Childhood You Can Afford - Daniel Suarez   [Short Story]	Business union (Manufacturing)	Positive depiction - Ensures gains of automation are shared more equitably.	Secondary
2016	Checkerboard Planet – Eleanor Arnason [Short Story]	Business union (Natural resource extraction)	Positive depiction – Labour organizer protagonist striving for better working conditions.	Primary
2016	Company Town - Madeline Ashby   [Novel]	Business union (Sex trade workers)	Positive depiction - Ensures workers’ safety and rights.	Secondary
2017	Little Witch Academia – S02E01 “Samhain Magic Festival” [Television Episode]	Business union (Janitorial services)	Negative depiction – Workers are pawns in the schemes of an evil capitalist.	Primary
2017	New York 2140 – Kim Stanley Robinson [Novel]	Multiple unions (housing, general labour, office workers)	Positive depiction – through co-ordinated action striking workers help reform democracy	Secondary
2017	Another Girl, Another Planet - Lou Antonelli   [Novel]	Business union (Duct workers)	Positive depiction - Ensures safety standards in construction.	Secondary
2017	Hunger Makes the Wolf / Blood Binds The Pack - Alex Wells   [Novel/Series]	Business union (Mining workers)	Positive depiction – Unionization drive is response to corporate exploitation.	Primary
2017	The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack - Nate Crowley [Novel]	Solidarity union (Undead labourers)	Positive depiction – Union fights against exploitation of labour	Primary
2017	Quirks – Marie Vibbert   [Short Story]	Business union (Carpenters)	Mixed depiction – Union uses memory uploads to share skills.	Primary
2018	Driving Ambition – Fiona Moore   [Novel]	Business union (Self-driving cars)	Positive depiction – Union helps protect the rights of artificially intelligent workers.	Primary
2018	Deep Rock Galactic – Coffee Stain Studios [Video Game]	Business union (Mining)	Positive depiction – Joining the union provides play benefits within the game	Secondary
2018	Sorry To Bother You - Boots Riley   [Movie]	Business union (Telemarketing)	Positive depiction - Balances power of capital.	Primary
2018	Unfulfilled/Bike Parade - South Park   [Television]	Solidarity union (Warehouse workers)	Positive depiction - Union   fights for safety standards and fair pay.	Primary
2019	The Great Faerie Strike – Spencer Ellsworth [Novel]	Solidarity union (manufacturing)	Positive depiction – union fights for worker rights in exploitative magical London	Primary
2019	Disco Elysium [Video Game]	Business union (dockworkers)	Negative depiction – Union is depicted as corrupt and involved in the drug trade. Union is compared to “crime syndicate.”	Primary
2019	The Town Meeting – Stephen Cox [Short Story]	Business union (Millworkers)	Positive depiction – Union leader speaks up for persecuted citizens	Primary
2019	The Future Of Another Timeline - Annalee Newitz   [Novel]	Multiple unions Industrial Workers Of The World, United Steelworkers and The Carpenters’ Union	Positive depiction – Unions are depicted as allies in the struggle for women’s rights. Steelworkers achieve fairer overtime compensation for workers.	Secondary
2019	Closed Shop – Kevin J. Phyland   [Short Story]	Solidarity union (Artificial Inteligence)	Positive depiction - Union fights for fair wages and public good.	Primary
2020	Hero Hours Contract 2 – Stephen O’Gorman [Video Game]	Business union (Magical Girls)	Positive depiction – Union heroically fights for better working conditions, pay, benefits, dental plan.	Primary
2020	Upload - S01E07 "Bring Your Dad To Work Day"	Business union (technology workers)	Positive depiction – Solution for workplace grievance.	Tertiary
2020	Hench – Natalie Zina Walschots [Novel]	Business union (henchmen)	Mixed depiction	Tertiary
2020	Lapsis   [Movie]	Solidarity union (Gig workers)	Positive depiction - Organizing in adverse conditions.	Primary
2020	The Factory Witches of Lowell – C.S. Malerich   [Novella]	Business union (mill workers)	Positive depiction – Union fights for better working conditions.	Primary
2020	The Salvage Crew – Yudhanjaya Wijeratne   [Novella]	Business union (Mining)	Positive depiction – Union secures better pay.	Tertiary
2020	The Fork – A. Parise [Novel]	Solidarity union (Workers’ Collective)	Positive depiction – Union protects citizenry	Primary
2020	The Ministry for the Future – Kim Stanley Robinson [Novel]	Business union (unspecified)	Positive depiction – Heroic protagonist is a former union lawyer who embodies the values of the labour movement.	Tertiary
2020 &2021	Hardspace: Shipbreaker –Blackbird Interactive   And expansion pack [Video Game]	Business union (salvage)	Positive depiction – Union protects vulnerable workers.	Primary
2021	All Rights Reserved - Xauri'EL Zwaan [Novella]	Solidarity union – (uploaded consciousnesses)	Positive depiction – Union resists indentured servitude	Primary
2021	The Hallowed Sky – Ken MacLeod [Novel]	Business union – (General labour)	Positive depiction – unions help take mankind to space	Secondary
2021	Committee on the Bounty – Keith W. Dickinson   [Short Story]	Business union – spaceship crewmembers	Negative depiction – union’s officiousness causes destruction of ship.	Primary
2021	Machinehood – S.B. Divya   [Novel]	Business union (construction)	Mixed depiction – Union funds antagonistic/violent protesters. Union also helps push back against erosion of human rights.	Secondary
2021	Heritage - Superman & Lois   [Television]	Business union (manufacturing)	Positive depiction – Fights for worker wages and safety at villain Morgan Edge’s factory.	Tertiary
2021	Orumai’s Choice – Gautam Bhatia [Short Story]	Solidarity union (General labour)	Positive depiction – Sentient robots assert their right to work-life balance.	Primary
2021	The Horizon – Gautam Bhatia [Novel]	Business union (Agricultural workers)	Positive depiction – union is central to revolution seeking to address inequity and inequality in society.	Primary
2021	Song of Slag – Louis Evans [Short Story]	Solidarity union (Foundry workers)	Positive depiction – union fights for fair compensation.	Primary
2021	The Association of Twelve Thousand Flowers - Ursula Whitcher [Short Story]	Solidarity union (Jade miners)	Positive depiction – Union counterbalances power of capital.	Primary
2021	The Revolution Will Not Be Served With Fries – Meg Elison [Short Story]	Solidarity union (Fast food workers and robots)	Positive depiction – Cross-species solidarity deals with severe workplace inequity.	Primary
2021	Z is for Zombies – TV series Evil (episode written by Patricia Ione Lloyd) [Television Episode]	Business union (Warehouse workers)	Positive depiction – Union provides voice for exploited workers (though formerly pro-union worker elevated to management becomes exploiter)	Primary
2021	C is for Cop – TV series Evil (episode written by Aurin Squire)	Business union (Police)	Negative depiction – Police union acts to intimidate witnesses to shooting.	Primary
2021	Forges of Mars – Graham McNeil [Novella]	Solidarity union (spaceship crew)	Positive depiction – Stands up to the Warhammer 40K universe filled with exploitation.	Secondary
2022	Unionized In The Butt And Now Everyone Is Safer, Happier And Better Paid – Chuck Tingle	Business union (Spaghetti Mug Manufacturing)	Positive depiction – Union fights for health and safety of workers as well as reasonable break times.	Primary
2022	Ogres – Adrian Tchaikovsky [Novella]	Solidarity union (Manufacturing)	Positive depiction – Union fights against exploitation and racism.	Secondary
2022	We Built This City – Marie Vibbert [Novelette]	Solidarity union (window washing)	Positive depiction – Fight for safer work environment	Primary
2022	Day Shift [Movie]	Business union (Supernatural pest control)	Negative depiction – Union is officious and bureaucratic.	Primary
2022	Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution – R.F. Kuang [Novel]	Guild union – (Translators)	Positive depiction – Important tool in promoting class solidarity.	Primary
2022	Witch Hunt – Louise Hughes	Guild union – (wise women / witches)	Positive depiction	Primary
2022	Tune in Tomorrow – Randee Dawn [Novel]	Solidarity union – Entertainment	Positive depiction – Union helps free magical beings from slavery	Primary
2022	When the Angels Left The Old Country - Sacha Lamb [Novel]	Business union – Garment workers	Positive depiction – Union helps immigrants find better life.	Secondary
2022	Star Trek: Picard “Watcher”	Business Union – Information Workers	Negative depiction – Brynner information Systems trying to prevent an organizing drive.	Tertiary
2022	No Return – Wide End No Return – The Steg No Return – The Orillian Regiment Author: Kier Zhou [Audio Drama]	Guild Unions (multiple) and Solidarity Unions	Mixed depiction – Some unions are employer dominated (exploit workers, prevent competition). Others are vehicles for emancipation.	Secondary
2022	Kid Wolf and Kraken Boy – Sam J. Miller	Business Union (Boxing)	Positive depiction – Helps improve lives of working people.	Primary
2022	City of Lost Chances – Adrian Tchaikovsky [Novel]	Solidarity Union (Manufacturing)	Positive depiction – Union fights against exploitation	Secondary
2022	Sporemageddon – Ravens Dagger [Novel]	Business union (industrial labourers)	Positive depiction – Works to secure better working conditions	Secondary
2023	Lockwood & Co S01E04 [Television Episode]	Business Union (Mystical protection)	Positive depiction – Exploited workers urged to form union	Tertiary
2023	The Keeper’s Six – Kate Elliott [Novel]	Solidarity Union (Municipal Workers in Dragon’s employ)	Positive depiction – Protagonist is a union organizer	Primary
2023	Last Act of the Revolution – Louise Hughes [Short Story]	Business union (factory workers)	Positive depiction – Union helps free people from forced labour.	Secondary
2023	Alloy Cooperative – K.J. Noakes [Novella]	Business union (blacksmithing)	Positive depiction – Union fights against nepotism and ensures fair distribution of wealth.	Primary
2023	Not pounded By The Physical Manifestation of My Own Screenwriting Because I’m On Strike And I Deserve To Be Compensated For My Labor While Studio CEOs Take Record Salaries – Chuck Tingle [Novelette]	Business union (screenwriters)	Positive depiction – Union fights for fair contract	Primary
2023	Station Six – S.J. Klapecki [Novel]	Business Union	Positive depiction – Union fights to keep workers employed.	Primary
2023	One Man’s Treasure – Sarah Pinkser [Short Story]	Solidarity Union (Magical waste collection)	Positive depiction – Union helps protect workers from unsafe waste.	Primary
2023	A Market of Dreams and Destiny – Trip Galey [Novel]	Solidarity union  (factory workers)	Positive depiction – union works to liberate children from exploitative labour practices	Primary
2023	Starter Villain – John Scalzi [Novel]	Soldiarity union (dolphins)	Positive-to-Mixed depiction - Union leadership and members depicted as antagonistic and obstreperous. But their grievances have merit. Boss gets to be the 'Hero.'	Secondary
2023	The Job At The End Of The World – Ray Nayler [Short Story[	Business union (first responders)	Positive – Passing reference to the union getting fair wages and health benefits.	Tertiary
2023	For All Mankind S04E01 “Glasnost” [Television Episode]	Business union (construction workers on Mars)	Negative – Passing reference to a strike disrupting Mars operations.	Tertiary
2023	Julia – Sandra Newman [Novel]	Business union (Agricultural and Manufacturing)	Negative – Unions complicit in the establishment of abusive totalitarian dictatorship.	Tertiary
2023	Any Percent – Andrew Dana Hudson   [Short Story]	Business union (Warehouse)	Positive – Unions provide solution to increasing inequality and abuse of workers.	Primary
2023	Liberty’s Daughter – Naomi Kritzer [Novel]	Solidarity union (IWW)	Positive – Unions provide solution to increasing inequality and abuse of workers.	Primary
2023	Warped State – Jo Miles [Novel]	Solidarity union (Several, but chemical workers prominent)	Positive – Unions provide the only counterbalance to an evil corporation.	Primary
2024	North Continent Ribbon – Ursula Whitcher [Novel]	Solidarity unions (multiple, including starships)	Positive – Protagonist helps organize exploited class of workers)	Secondary
2024	Floating Hotel – Grace Curtis [Novel]	Business union – Butchers	Negative – striking workers cause problems for protagonist	Tertiary
2024	Club Contago - Eliane Boey [Novel]	Business union – Port workers union.	Positive – Fighting gamification of work and worker replacement by automation.	Secondary
2024	The Sentence – Gautam Bhatia [Novel]	Solidarity union – mining (anarchist union that also includes other professions)	Positive – Union provides counterbalance to upper-class side of city	Secondary
2024	The Topeka Witches Coven Answers Questions about the Upcoming Union Vote to Join The United Auto Workers – Kathy Hays [Short story]	Business union - Professional magic practitioners (witches)	Positive - Union opposes exploitative labour practices, and encourages professional behaviour among its membership	Primary
2024	Megalopolis – Francis Ford Coppola [Movie]	Business union – construction	Negative – Offhand remarks about union getting in the way.	Tertiary
2024	Bury Your Gays – Chuck Tingle [Novel]	Business union – Entertainment	Positive – Labour unions provide integrity in creative pursuits	Tertiary
2024	The Sun Runners by James Bow [Novel]	Business union – Mining	Positive – Unions grievances are legitimate.	Tertiary
2024	Metal From Heaven – August Clarke [Novel]	Business union – Mining	Positive – Union protests against environmental degradation	Secondary
2024	Sargassa – Sophie Burnham [Novel]	Guild unions – Multiple	Neutral to positive – Unions are a fact of life, though probably making things better.	Tertiary
2025	Automatic Noodle – Annalee Newitz [Novella]	Business unions – Multiple	Mixed – Government does not allow some sentient beings to belong to labour unions.	Tertiary
2025	Paradise S01E03 - Dan Fogelman [TV Show]	Business union – Pilots	Positive – Union rules prevent unsafe pilot from flying a plane.	Tertiary
2025	Murderbot S01E10 – Martha Wells [TV Show]	Solidarity union – Unspecified	Positive – Labour strike being put down is used as example of why Corporation Rim is unethical.	Tertiary
2025	Two Songs Before The Airlock Cycles – R.K. Duncan [Short Story]	Business union – Ship building	Positive – Labour union provides social safety net and solidarity	Primary

 

 

 

 

 

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