On a Sunday night late last month, the third-shift picket lines at the gates of the colossal Kohler plant were jammed with Tier B workers — cracking jokes, getting to know one another outside the heat of the foundry, off the assembly line.

It was the night shift, something like midnight. The line that night was young and international. Women and men. Third-generation German-American Kohler workers joined by Hmong-American, Latino, and black fellow workers. At their side were young migrants from southern Wisconsin and upstate New York, and many other small and large places.

Workers warmed themselves, and each other, at the burn barrels. They stood in vigils of at least fifteen at each of the plant gates, and kept guard in pickets of six or more at several points around the factories’ walled perimeter.