Nation: The Golden Handshake

In an era when labor and management tend to reason rather than wrangle, the United Auto Workers' Local 833 and Wisconsin's Kohler Co. remained locked in a mastodontic duel for more years than most Americans care to remember. The longest major labor dispute in U.S. history, the Kohler strike began in April 1954, when workers at the plumbing-fixtures plant stormed out in a disagreement with the family-owned firm over a series of union demands for higher wages and fringe benefits. After a two-month closure, the factory resumed production with nonunion labor, touching off six years of intermittent violence in the company...

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