About the Book:This on-the-ground labor history chronicles the bitterly contested labor conflict in the mid 1990s at the A. E. Staley corn processing plant in Decatur, Illinois, where workers waged one of the most hard-fought struggles in recent labor history. When the company launched a full-scale assault on its workers, Allied Industrial Workers Local 837 responded by educating and mobilizing its members, organizing strong support from the religious and African American communities, building a nationwide solidarity movement, and engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the plant gates. Through scores of interviews and videotapes of every union meeting, the authors bring the workers’ voices to the fore and reveal their innovative tactics that inform and strengthen today’s labor movement.Table of Contents: Preface ix Prologue: Jim Beals 1 1. The Company and the Union 7 2. Tate & Lyle Comes to Decatur 19 3. The Union Prepares to Resist 27 4. Work-to-Rule 45 5. The Temperature Rises 58 6. Locked Out 74 7. Road Warriors and Solidarity Committees 94 8. Debating the Corporate Campaign 112 9. Peacetime Soldiers and Wartime Soldiers 124 10. God as Outside Agitator 137 11. The African American Workers 151 12. Civil Disobedience 169 13. Strike City, USA 194 14. The Paperworkers 212 15. Mission to Bal Harbour 225 16. Still in the Fight 237 17. In the Fast Lane 247 18. Showdown 261 19. Aftermath 278 20. A Winnable Fight 290 Appendix: Sources 303 Notes 307 Glossary 343 Index 347Photographs follow page 6.