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   347 Photographs follow page 6.