character_connection MySQL variable

mysql> show variables like 'collation%';

+----------------------+-------------------+

| Variable_name | Value |

+----------------------+-------------------+

| collation_connection | latin1_swedish_ci |

| collation_database | utf8_general_ci |

| collation_server | utf8_general_ci |

+----------------------+-------------------+

Is there a reason why this is latin1_swedish_ci? Can I change this to utf8_general_ci like the others? I'm trying to run a query that does a union on two TEXT columns and getting the error " illegal mix of collations (utf8_general_ci,IMPLICIT) and (latin1_swedish_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation 'UNION'"