Sunday, September 4, 2005

Todd McInturf / The Detroit News The careers at Ford of the Dunns -- Greg, dad Kelly Jr. and granddad Kelly Sr., pictured with his wife, Mary -- follow the industry's early years of unyielding toil to union-led prosperity to today's waning prospects.

Labor Day loses luster for union family

Last of three generations of autoworkers sees way of life coming to an end as good jobs, benefits fade away.

By Francis X. Donnelly / The Detroit News

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MADISON HEIGHTS -- Through sweat and blood, Kelly Dunn of Detroit helped give birth to organized labor in the 1930s. Kelly Dunn Jr. reaped what his father had sown, enjoying a bounty of high wages, paid vacations and company-paid health insurance.

But Greg Dunn, the third generation of his family to work for Ford Motor Co., sometimes feels like the guy who got to the party too late. The automaker is pushing him and other employees to surrender some pay and benefits.

On the eve of Labor Day, a holiday that resonates loudly in Detroit, the heart of the worker movement, unions find themselves under attack. Detroit Public Schools teachers last week meekly accepted a 2 1/2 percent pay cut and fewer benefits while a strike by mechanics at Northwest Airlines is having little impact on the carrier.

Greg Dunn and his family have had a clear view of a century of change in the American workplace. From their spots on the Ford factory floor, three generations of Dunns have watched the turbulence that produced organized labor and now threatens to render it irrelevant.

"This is something major," said Greg Dunn, 46, a pipe fitter from Washington Township.

"This isn't going away."

In three acts, they've borne witness to the fiery beginning of unions in the 1930s, their heyday the next decade and the slow decline over the last half-century.

The percentage of Americans who belong to unions dropped from 35 percent in 1955 to 12.5 percent today, according to federal statistics.

Jim Walkinshaw, a Lansing author who has written two books about Ford's history, said the workplace has changed dramatically, with auto plants requiring far fewer workers and several different jobs being done in separate places.

"We've gone from making things all in one organization to a more fragmented one," he said.

If there's an epilogue to the story, the fourth generation of Dunns won't be around to see it.

Greg Dunn's two daughters want no part of an industry they believe is dying.

$5 a day hard earned

Family patriarch Kelly Dunn came to Detroit in the early 1900s to help build a tunnel under the Detroit River for Michigan Central Railroad.

Born amid the Appalachian hollows of eastern Kentucky, he had made little money tending farms in the state's tobacco row.

At 32 years old, Dunn, who had a thick Southern drawl, went to work in the nascent auto industry in 1914 when pioneer Henry Ford raised the pay of workers to $5 a day. It was twice as much as he had made before.

To get the job, he waited in the miles-long line for three days with his wife bringing him food, relatives said.

"He loved that raise," said Kelly Jr. "Doubled your pay. That makes your eyes open a little bit."

One reason Ford boosted the pay was because he had a hard time holding onto workers. Making Model T's was dangerous work.

Employees suffered cuts and burns and lost limbs and sometimes their lives, according to the Detroit Historical Museum. In the Highland Park plant, where Dunn kept the machinery oiled, 192 fingers were severed in 1916.

Workers were treated as just another raw material, according to auto historians. They had few rights, getting fired if they failed to keep up with the relentless pace of the assembly line.

"If they didn't like how you looked, you were gone," said Dunn, who recalled his dad's memories of the time.

Enter organized labor. The United Auto Workers was organized in 1935, but it would take awhile, and some violence, before they were recognized by the companies as the workers' representative.

The auto industry was one of the biggest opponents of the fledgling unions, according to labor historians. It planted spies among members. Its thugs wore brass knuckles to drive the point home.

Workers held massive sit-down strikes at auto factories in 1937 and, when UAW organizers were beaten by Ford security guards in a widely publicized incident at Ford's Rouge plant, public sentiment began to turn against management.

By the late 1930s, federal law awarded the unions a singular achievement, the right to exist.

Union benefits attracted son

After working for Ford for several decades, Dunn moved back to Campton, Ky., with a lot more money than when he had left. He bought a tobacco farm and general store, enjoying a pampered retirement.

In 1948, his son, Kelly Jr., who was born and raised in Campton, heard the same siren song from Detroit. Or maybe it was the voice of his father.

"He said, 'If you want to make money, go to Michigan,' " Kelly Jr. said. "It's the best state in the union to make money."

He moved to Detroit and became a self-employed plumber. He made more money than autoworkers but, remembering the stories of his dad, liked the job security that came with union work.

Kelly Jr., who's now 74 and lives in Madison Heights, went to work as a pipe fitter at the Ford axle plant in Sterling Heights.

When he started in 1976, much of the tumult surrounding unions had passed away. Instead, he was left with its profitable residue.

Among the benefits were pensions, sick leave, paid holidays, overtime pay and cost-of-living raises. His father and other union forebears also had won higher wages, shorter hours, unemployment compensation and a growing minimum wage.

The working class had a higher standard of living than ever before.

"If you want to work, go to work for the best company in the state of Michigan," he said about Ford.

Dunn, like his father, sometimes worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. But the elder Dunn was forced to do it and received little pay. The younger Dunn volunteered for the overtime and was compensated handsomely for it.

One Christmas, he worked 36 hours in a row, pocketing $3,500.

Unions also feasted on the prosperity. By the mid-1970s, they had enjoyed a 30-year run with unprecedented power and social prominence. Their membership had soared to include a third of all American workers. Polls showed strong support among the public.

Even during its strongest years, however, warning signs began to appear. Even as early as the 1950s, automation began to replace some of the work they did.

Market shifts erode security

By the time Greg Dunn, the son of Kelly Jr., went to work for Ford in 1989, the labor landscape had shifted once again.

The faint automation drumbeat had turned into a giant growl of new technology. Some factories were entirely driven by machines.

Other problems began to surface. As the economy went global, jobs went south, abroad or disappeared in thin air. Errands once performed by union workers popped up as nonunion ones in foreign lands.

"Back then, we had borders that would be Canada and Mexico," said Greg Dunn. "Now there are no borders left."

Several recessions and foreign competition led to corporate restructurings and tightening payrolls. In the 1980s, automakers received pay and benefits concessions from workers.

Still, the work paid well enough and offered enough security for Dunn to become a pipe fitter. But the job seems shakier every year, he said.

"It's a dying industry," he said. "It used to be cyclical but now it's flat-lined. The auto industry is pretty much beat."

Union membership has shrunk to its lowest point since the birth of labor. Only one in eight American workers now belong to a union.

With fewer members, its influence has dimmed along with its image. Some view unions as a narrow interest group as bureaucratic as the companies they fight.

With their power stripped, the old expectation of lifetime employment at auto companies has gone out the factory window. Nothing is assumed anymore, Dunn said.

Now, once again, autoworkers are being asked to surrender some of their pay and benefits.

"The union has to take a good hard look at what they're doing," Dunn said. "What they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. Everybody has to adjust."

His twin daughters won't be among those making changes, however. One plans to become a teacher while the other is thinking about working in the culinary arts.

You can reach Francis X. Donnelly at (313) 223-4186 or fdonnelly@detnews.com.