His first day with a Chicago law fi rm, labor attorney Eric Rossbach meets industrialist Sheldon Blatty. "Th is corrupt union boss, Mike Mulrooney, is trying to shove a contract down my throat," Blatty complains. "No damn union's telling me how to run my company." Rossbach reassures Blatty that he can keep the Blatty plant nonunion. If a strike turns violent, Rossbach would rush to court for a quick injunction.
Blatty's new law firm will not deter Mulrooney. He's determined to use any means available, legal or illegal, to force Blatty to sign a union contract. He has his own aggressive game plan, his Guernica Project, to break the will of antiunion employers like Blatty. However, will Mulrooney's hardball campaign force Blatty to outsource his production to China?
Rossbach meets Deborah Morgan, the union's attorney, at the first bargaining session. He thinks she's beautiful. Rossbach's marriage is crashing, but he knows that nothing can happen between Morgan and him while they are opposing counsel. Then, while Rossbach and Morgan represent their clients during contract negotiations, in courtroom battles, and during a bitter and deadly strike, their relationship changes in ways that neither had anticipated when they first met.