The use of a legislative
maneuver last night by
Republicans in the
Wisconsin Senate to
advance Governor Scott
Walker's efforts to
strip state employees of
their collective
bargaining rights may
have caught Democrats by
surprise, but the
ultimate result of the
actions of Walker and
his GOP allies may have
been to awaken a
sleeping giant.
For the first time in
decades, driven by the
emergence of the
Millennial Generation,
the nation's youngest
politically active
generation (born
1982-2003), the public
is as positive about
labor unions as it is
about business
corporations. Pew
research findings show
that, in the private
sector, Millennials side
with unions over
business in disputes by
51% to 37% and, in the
public sector, favor
unions over government
by a 56% to 32%. These
attitudes are reflected
in recent surveys
showing that both within
Wisconsin and across
the nation Americans
favor the public
employee unions in their
dispute with the
governor. In fact,
largely due to
defections from
Republican union
members, one recent
survey suggested that
Walker would lose a
reelection vote to his
2010 Democratic opponent
if a new election were
to be held today.
In a recent Pew survey,
nearly equal numbers of
Americans were favorable toward
labor (45%) and business
(47%). This is in sharp
contrast to the
Reagan-Gingrich era of
the 1980s and 1990s when
the public was more
positive about business
than about labor by
margins of around 15
percentage points. The
Millennial Generation
accounts for almost all
of the narrowing of this
gap. Millennials are
positive about labor
unions by a 2:1 margin
(58% favorable to 29%
unfavorable). The young
cohort is far less
positive about business
corporations (49%
favorable to 43%
unfavorable). Although
in the wake of the Great
Recession, older
generations are less
positive toward business
than they were a decade
or two ago, they are
still narrowly more
favorable toward
corporations (46% each
favorable and
unfavorable) than toward
labor (42% favorable to
44% unfavorable).
The Millennials'
endorsement of labor
unions does not simply
stem from a supposed
tendency of young people
to always support the
underdog or liberal
causes. Back in the
1980s and 1990s,
youthful members of the
individualistic and
entrepreneurial
Generation X (born
1965-1981), and a key
Ronald Reagan support
group, usually tilted
toward management in its
disputes with labor.
Rather, the Millennial
Generation has positive
impressions of labor
unions because it is
what generational
theorists have labeled a
"civic generation."
Civic generations, like
the Millennials and the
GI or Greatest
Generation are
characterized by their
group-orientation, their
tendency to build,
reform, and utilize
societal institutions,
and their belief in
cooperative approaches
to accomplish their own
and the nation's goals.
At around 95 million,
the Millennial
Generation is the
largest in U.S. history,
but its full force has
yet to be felt. In 2008,
when Millennials
preferred Barack Obama
over John McCain by a
66% to 32% margin and
accounted for 80% of the
president's popular vote
margin, they comprised
less than one fifth
(17%) of the electorate.
In 2012, when Obama runs
for reelection,
Millennials will account
for about a quarter
(24%) of those eligible
to vote. In 2020, when
the youngest Millennials
reach voting age the
generation will comprise
more than a third (36%)
of American adults.
As we point out in our
upcoming book, Millennial
Momentum: How a New
Generation is Remaking
America, with
numbers like these the
emerging generation is
about to reshape all
aspects of national
life, including the
relative positions of
labor and management in
the U.S. economy and
American politics. The
last time a civic
generation so thoroughly
dominated American
society, as the
Millennials are about
to, was in the 1930s
when the GI Generation,
whose numbers were equal
to those of the two
preceding generations
combined, spearheaded
labor's drive to
organize the nation's
industrial workforce.
They were so successful
that more than a third
of all American workers
were union members by
the mid-1950s. In the
decades after it fought
and defeated the Axis in
World War II, the GI
Generation assumed
positions of power and
thoroughly shaped the
nation's institutions,
just as Millennials will
do in the years to come.
In the Millennial era
that lays ahead, public
opinion and governmental
policy will be more
sympathetic to labor
than they have been at
any time since the GI
Generation ran things.
Given the preference of
many Millennials for
public and governmental
service, public employee
unions should find fertile
ground for
organizing and for
maintaining public
support for a level
playing field between
workers and employers.
That is why Governor
Walker's battle in
Wisconsin and similar
efforts in other states
over the ability of
workers to organize are
likely, in the end, to
fail and why the decades
ahead are likely to be
better for organized
labor than the previous
few decades have been.
