Posted by James Eli Shiffer, reporting by Warren Wolfe

About 150 strikers and a dozen security guards shared a two-block stretch of Smith Avenue in downtown St. Paul. They hovered around United Hospital, the one group pacing and chanting, the other keeping watch on the demonstrators and keeping everyone except patients, patient visitors and staff out of the hospital. The scene felt more like a holiday than the biggest labor-management confrontation of its kind.

"Be careful," striker nurse Cathy Carter cautioned fellow nurses as a car neared the hospital's drive to the front door. "They may be turning in." The car went by. "We're not here to antagonize anybody. We're out here making our point very forcefully, but we can be polite about it."