In midst of labor issues, Michigan celebrates holiday

DETROIT (AP) - Ten days into their strike, Northwest Airlines pilots took to Detroit's streets yesterday with laid-off co-workers in a parade honoring a holiday of note in this city known for its fervent unionism.

Onlookers lining a downtown street didn't disappoint, cheering the passing pilots and their families, as well as Northwest machinists and flight attendants laid-off by the walkouts.

Encouraged by the reception, the pilots - some pushing children in strollers - returned the gesture, smiling while flashing thumbs-up signs.

Welcome to Labor Day in a big labor city, where simultaneous processions by the Teamsters and United Auto Workers converged on one downtown rally site.

In terms of safeguarding workers' rights - often through costly strikes - "everybody in this town has been through the same thing," said Mark Sturgill, a 20-year Northwest Pilot from Oakland County's Commerce Township. "This is a labor town, where people have fought for years for things they believe in."

As Michiganians elsewhere flocked to festivals or fired up backyard grills, Detroit's parades were meant to make a statement: In the face of dwindling union membership, organized labor remains formidable.

"This day gives anyone involved in unionism a good feeling," Mitch Kuhn said while hawking campaign pins touting Geoffrey Fieger, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate who took part in the parades, then espoused himself as the pro-labor alternative to Gov. John Engler.

Added Kuhn: "This is the one day we can come out, celebrate and all commit to the future."

And come out they did. In drowning out the traditional marching bands, Teamsters-backed truckers passed with blares of air horns from dump trucks, cement trucks and semi rigs, some towing flatbed trailers bearing construction machinery.

Along the way, marchers - many in construction helmets - covered the gamut of union ranks from postal workers to pipefitters, restaurant workers to roofers.

"I think we're here as protectors of Michigan families, and people have to recognize that organized labor is a key part of that," said onlooker Sheila Strunk, a Mount Clemens social worker and United Auto Workers member.

"In terms of Michigan's labor presence, Detroit is just the focal point."

And a vocal one, evidenced lately by the Northwest strike that has transformed the airline's terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport - a major Northwest hub - into a virtual ghost town.

Earlier this summer, strikes at two General Motors Corp. plants virtually halted the automaker's North American production and cost Michigan's economy an estimated $1 billion in lost output.

In bidding for Engler's job, Fieger seized yesterday's parades as a chance to champion himself as the working class' candidate and to court the union vote.

"We need solidarity - once, and forever," Fieger, clad in blue jeans and a blue blazer, told union types during a post-parades rally. "We have to scream it from every building, from every mountain top, from every hill and dale."

Of listeners, he asked: "Do you want to reassert that Michigan is still the strongest pro-labor state in the United States?"

Detroit's serious holiday tone contrasted with lightness of observances elsewhere in Michigan:

After leading thousands in the annual walk across the Mackinac Bridge linking Michigan's northern and lower peninsulas, Engler hustled in a state plane to the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck and its Labor Day Festival.

* In Macomb County's Romeo community, things were peachy with its yearly Peach Festival, featuring pancake breakfasts, bingo, arts-and-crafts booths, carnival rides and Vegas-style games leading to a holiday parade and classic car cruise.

* In Pontiac, Labor Day included the first Arts, Beats and Eats festival, with free music from three stages, food sold at 35 restaurant booths, and displays by 125 artists.

* In Detroit's Hart Plaza, jazz fans swooned to tunes of the Montreux Detroit Jazz Festival, billed by organizers as North America's largest free jazz event.

09-08-98