[Excerpt] What started as a labor dispute involving 370 workers in rural Louisiana ended after the OCAW had transformed the struggle into a worldwide labor-environmental coalition against the policies and practices of BASF everywhere. In the process both the workers and the communities along the Mississippi River that make up "chemical alley" (93 chemical plants from Baton Rouge to New Orleans) learned a lot about cancer and other devastating diseases and their links to the operating procedures of BASF and other chemical companies.