The small town of Eaton Falls, NH is trapped between tradition and progress. With 90 days to bankruptcy, it will take a lot of Yankee ingenuity to prevent the showdown between wildcat strikers and factory management. But you never know how tightly chained you are to a town until real trouble sets in, like that morning last fall when our whistle didn't blow. The Granite State Shoe Company in Rockingham County has gone out of business. Local workers complain that the owners will just move to a place with cheap labor and no unions.
Prices are too high.
The competition is killing them. Brad will not agree since men will be laid off. He has invested all his personal wealth in the company, he says, but agrees not to lower wages and to hire the men back as soon as profits are up again. He'll come up with an idea to make the company profitable, he vows. Back at the plant Brad reveals to Joe that the company's biggest customer is not renewing its contract.