This article is part of a larger project on the cultural history of striking in Austria and Switzerland 1860-1950, substantially funded by the Swiss National Foundation and the largest Swiss Trade Union. The aim is to revitalise studies of strikes (which have not been a major feature of social history for more than twenty years) and contribute to a cultural renewal of labour history. The article is unusual in viewing strikes through conceptual approaches which have never been applied to this subject. This article analyses both agency and discourse during the summer of strikes in Zurich in 1906, when a car workers' strike caused large street protests and eventually military intervention. It provides a 'thick description' of agency in the main theatres of action, and through this the role of different political cultures. It examines actions in the village of Albisrieden, where the car factory was located and where the culture of industrial relations was still dominated by rural traditions. Here the strikers were opposed by local peasants, who perceived the labour movement as a foreign element and a threat to their village's honour. The strike was accompanied by the public humiliation of ‘outsiders' sympathising with the labour movement. This is compared with strike action in Zurich's workers' quarter. In this area, it was the workers – men and women – who defended their life world against ‘foreign' invaders. Through their eyes, the deployment of military force was evidence of the fact that even in the most democratic canton of the world's most democratic state, the bourgeoisie was ready to defend its privileges by force. In non–socialist discourses, however, the conflict was seen as a clash between ‘Swiss' order and ‘foreign' disorder, the latter allegedly being represented by Italian and German immigrant workers and ‘revolutionaries.