WIL

The idea of aging union workers fading into glory after decades of holding down the same job is trending in another direction. And it has much to do with the growing, younger, more technologically agile worker base that's becoming available.

Yes, millennials are posed to shake up an aging worker-employer compact that's controlled and supported most of the nation's blue-collar labor force since the mid-19th century.

The magazine GOVERNING reports that polling by Gallup and the Pew Research Center shows that about 60 percent of those younger than 30 express support for unions, compared to about 40 percent to 45 percent of older Americans. Such age-related resentment turned young people away from organized labor in the 1970s and 1980s when there was a widespread perception that unions were in place mainly to protect the status quo for a select group.

But GOVERNING correspondent Alan Greenblatt found such generational bias mostly has faded. That's to be expected with the damage that the housing foreclosure crisis of the last decade has done to the markets and a steadily rising corporate preference to contract out work to cheaper foreign workers.

Yet in researching "How Millennials Can Make Their Mark on Unions," Greenblatt found that "Younger workers can bring a new energy to organized labor. But if unions want to attract millennials, they'll have to change some of their ways."

For example, he says, the young hire is more liberal in politics than a veteran shop employee. And they are gutsy about their opinions, having been raised, in many cases, at least two decades from the average union worker. And they can be inquisitive to the point where offense can be taken, although not intended.

Here's how Robert Suarez, president of the Miami branch of the International Association of Fire Fighters, explains it: "When they question authority, they want to know why that's the best way to do something. They're a little more interested in the substance of the issue than prior generations. If you make the mistake of saying to the younger generation, 'shut up and just do it because everybody else is doing it,' you're going to have a problem."

"The older generations, they had bad experiences with unions in their time," admitted Jacquita Berens, a 30-year-old who is working to organize home health workers in Minnesota for the Service Employees International Union. "Young people are more receptive to unions, to change."

And they will need to be, because the fate of public and private employee unions has been undergoing dramatic shifts that are trending away from the traditionally high wages, plush medical and retirement benefits and guaranteed work.

But there is a silver lining. Millennials like a good dust-up over ideas and issues of fair wages and healthy work conditions. If the old guard pays attention, it can sustain organized labor by respectfully grafting in these new workers.