Did class lose its meaning as a political and social category during the 1970s? An emerging consensus among historians (e.g., Jefferson Cowie, Nelson Lichtenstein) suggests that it did. But the consensus view of the U.S. labor movement fails to take into account changes in the nature of class during deindustrialization and does not fully incorporate the post-industrial labor force into the narrative. Scholars who focus only on manufacturing miss important connections between industrial and service workers and fail to ask whether they continued to value class connections. As the second-largest industrial city in the state and one that evolved from a major manufacturing center to a service-sector economy during the deindustrialization of the late 1970s, Racine, Wisconsin, provides an excellent case against which to test the consensus view that class became a meaningless category. This project explores the rich and complex labor community that emerged in Racine in the 1930s and continued into the 1970s, a community composed not only of white males working industrial jobs, but minorities and women, especially black and Latina service workers, who were active in labor and social justice issues. It assesses the meaning of class by focusing on the history of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 150 and its relationship with industrial unions in the Racine labor community. Using oral histories along with archival documents from unions, political organizations, and social justice groups, my project traces the evolving class identity of Racine workers of all races and both genders and the extent to which altered conceptions of class shaped the avenues workers pursued to gain greater economic security and political empowerment through the 1980s.