I was just rereading the AFL-CIO’s petition, filed almost a year ago, with the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office that sought to force the U.S. to hold China accountable for its repressive labor practices. It’s a startling story of the challenge Chinese workers face—and, by extension, what labor faces in the U.S. in trying to grapple with, in my opinion, a monumental obstacle to reviving the labor movement.

Just as an example, check this out. According to the petition:

There are more than 750 million workers in China — more than the workforce of all OECD countries combined. China’s 2002 census showed approximately 160 million in manufacturing and mining, nearly 12 times the manufacturing workforce in the United States.

And, then, a bit later:

China has approximately 780 million peasants. Between 180 and 350 million are estimated to be “excessive” or in “dire poverty” and available for urban employment. Ten to twenty million will enter the nonagricultural workforce each year during the next two decades. That is, every year, China will add more nonagricultural workers than the total manufacturing workforce of the United States. In the next three to five years, China will add more workers to its urban workforce than the total manufacturing workforce of the U.S., the E.U, and Japan combined.

Whew.