Based on a real strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, the film follows Mexican-American workers, who strike for wage parity with Anglo workers and be treated with dignity. When an injunction is issued, the wives take up the battle with a fury, leaving husbands and children at home.

Depicting the prejudices faced by Mexican-Americans with a feminist and pro-labor position, this powerful and persuasive, yet long-suppressed and blacklisted film was promptly decried as communist propaganda. A rare and radical classic of American independent and social-realist cinema.