As the duration of the strike reaches a month, the factory owners are suffering severe financial losses and are close to giving in. Unaware of this and suffering from both low supplies and a low morale, workers meet and vote to end the strike. Sinigaglia then reappears, delivers yet more fiery rhetoric and convinces them not only to keep striking but to escalate the movement by occupying the factory. In a showdown between the strikers and an army unit dispatched to block access to the premises, soldiers fire into the crowd, killing Omero and sending the others fleeing. Sinigaglia is arrested by the police, and Raoul has to go into hiding after attacking a police officer.