Taken from Hubert Selby, Jr.'s controversial novel set in early 1950s Brooklyn. During a bitter strike by workers against a local factory, a gallery of struggling characters are crushed by their squalid surroundings and selves: an unhappily married union strike leader discovers he is gay; a jaded prostitute falls in love with one of her clients, a naive young sailor; a union negotiator attempts to peacefully resolve the strike while desperately hiding the fact that he's a communist; the family of a striking factory worker cannot cope with the fact that their teenage daughter is illegitimately pregnant.