Ella May Wiggins' husband has run off again, and she must keep her four young children alive with the only work she can find -- the night shift at a North Carolina mill. When union leaflets begin to circulate, she yearns for the better life the organisers promise. But the mill owners, backed by other nefarious forces, claim the union is nothing but a front for the Bolshevik menace sweeping across Europe, and they will use every means in their power, including bloodshed, to prevent the workers banding together.