"It tears the heart right out of you": Memories of Striker Replacement at International Paper Company in De Pere, Wisconsin, 1987 88

In the summer of 1987, more than 370 workers at Nicolet PaperCompany in De Pere, Wisconsin, walked out on strike after refusingto agree to a wide range of concessions demanded by InternationalPaper Company (IP), Nicolet's parent company. Within a few weeks,however, IP had permanently replaced the strikers, a tacticthat became increasingly common in the 1980s. The author usesoral history interviews to provide a valuable, unique insightinto the effects of the permanent replacement tactic, whichbitterly divided the small community and left workers with psychologicalscars that were all too apparent more than a decade later. Asthe Nicolet workers were part of a broader showdown betweenIP and the United Paperworkers' International Union, the articlealso helps to illuminate the history of a major labor disputeof the 1980s.