Last October, amid contract negotiations at its Memphis, Tennessee cereal factory, Kellogg’s escalated tactics and locked out the plant’s 220 employees. For 295 days, workers maintained a symbolic picket line in front of the plant, waiting for a judge’s order to return them to work. That order finally came in August.

The story of the Memphis lockout is a vivid demonstration of global capitalist forces at work in a local community. It is also instructive in examining the state of the US labor movement more broadly — particularly how it has chosen to respond to ferocious attacks from employers.

The use of lockouts as a tool of accumulation is on the rise in the US and around the advanced capitalist world, and labor has at times been unable to effectively respond. The Kellogg’s lockout only came to an end as the result of a judge’s order — and workers still do not have a contract.