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.
Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of NDN and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics" and the upcoming "Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America."
As I recall it, this age group preferred Reagan over Carter by very wide margins in 1980.
These are young people with a lot of life to live and as their personal situations change so will their allegiances and alliances.
Dems and liberals are SO desperate to come up with something, anything, good about their epic failure in WI this week that it is almost looking like therapy and not politcal debate.
I don't think they yet had formed a politcal conscience based on what reagan did as governor of california.
He shows loyalty to no one, but the moneyed few, who control completely his words and actions.
this is the world we are fast approaching and it may have already landed on us.
This is not my world. but I have no power individually to stop it.
I know now , what germany must of been like in the 30s.
As the people of the Middle East move forward toward freedom, fighting for rights they have never had,
We are fighting to keep the same they are fighting for.
This country was formed on freedom of religion , now we vilify any religion that is not "approved"
It brings tears to my 70 year old eyes to see parts of the US become like petty third world dictatorships.
In the interest of saving taxes for the wealthy it could make sense if everyone would benefit. It has been proven that only a few have so far.
Montana's Governor cut his salary and perks, so when he took a bite of the bullet along with his employees he demonstrated real leadership. The old horsecrap of taking from employees to benefit the king has weaseled its way back. This is not leadership. It's petty dictatorial behavior.
India (average wage $145 a month) or to China ($190 average).http://wwwÂ.payscale.Âcom/salaryÂ-survey/viÂd-3177/fidÂ-11570
http://wwwÂ.china-labÂour.org.hkÂ/en/node/1Â00206#partÂ2