Advocate Online

They're Talking On Campus. . .

...about an increase in the proportion of adults who say they are reading some kind of literary work.

“Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy,” a report from the National Endowment for the Arts, claims that a quarter-century decline in fiction reading has been reversed.

For the first time since 1982, when the census bureau began collecting data on reading, the proportion of adults 18 and older who said they had read at least one novel, short story, poem, or play in the previous 12 months has risen.

The proportion of the population that is reading is just over 50 percent and still below what it was in 1982. The increase was most dramatic among 18-to-24-year-olds, who had previously shown the most significant declines.

…about a recent survey that finds 78 percent of those polled want to see legislation that protects workers’ freedom to form unions.

The survey of 1,007 adults across the country, conducted in December for the AFL-CIO by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, also found that 75 percent of those surveyed support recognizing a union when a majority of workers sign up in support, 64 percent support strengthening penalties against companies who intimidate or fire workers who are trying to form a union, and 61 percent favor binding arbitration if a company will not agree to a first contract. The poll shows strong support  for the Employee Free Choice Act, proposed federal legislation that would strengthen the right to unionize, says the AFL-CIO.