Reporter’s Notebook: ‘Workforce’ vs. ‘Labor’ and Far-Right Political Correctness

Texas AFL-CIO spokesperson Ed Sills called changing the Committee on Education and Labor an “effort to erase the very nomenclature chosen by workers to speak up together — LABOR UNIONS.”

By Steve Wishnia

Along with multiple vows to investigate the “weaponization” of federal agencies against the peaceful tourists who visited the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, another ritual of the Republicans taking control of the House this month was once again changing the name of the Committee on Education and Labor to the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The word “labor,” the committee said in a statement Jan. 10, was “an antiquated term that excludes individuals who contribute to the American workforce but aren’t classified as conventional employees. ‘Labor’ also carries a negative connotation that ignores the dignity of work; the term is something out of a Marxist textbook that fails to capture the accomplishments of the full spectrum of the American workforce.”

“Ignores the dignity of work”? They never saw photos of socialist rallies in 1912 where people carried “Labor Creates All Wealth” signs? Texas AFL-CIO spokesperson Ed Sills called the name change an “effort to erase the very nomenclature chosen by workers to speak up together — LABOR UNIONS.”

Socialists rally in NYC’s Union Square back on May 1, 1912.

That name is supposed to signify the solidarity of working people who want a decent living, respect, and security — instead of a life of precarious, underpaid toil where they can be sacked at any moment.

“The Left prefers the term labor because it creates a sense of enmity between employees and employers which union bosses and left-wing activists seek to stoke for political gain,” the committee’s Republican majority said in the next paragraph. “Though the Left likes to treat employers like predators, we know that most job creators have their employees’ best interests in mind.”

Most working people take pride in being good at what they do, and I’ve worked for enough now-defunct publications to want the ones I write for to stay viable. It’s hard to see, though, what employees’ “best interests” are being served by the mine and railroad owners who deny workers time off, even sick days; the nonunion construction contractors who cheat workers out of pay and don’t give them basic safety equipment; and the private-equity firms that cut nursing-home and newspaper staffs until the bone marrow oozes out.

The recent strikes by nurses in New York, Buffalo, and Worcester, Massachusetts were mainly provoked by understaffing: The striking nurses I interviewed said it prevents them from doing their job — taking care of their patients.

“Language matters,” the committee Republicans say. “Using outdated terms like ‘labor’ creates an overt bias towards union bosses while widening fissures created by Big Labor between workers and employers.”

As a writer, I choose my words carefully, for meaning, accuracy, overtones, sound, rhythm, and conciseness. But “language matters” ironically echoes the motto of the leftists, professional-class liberals, and corporate centrists who the far right regularly mocks for sanctimoniously policing language.

As a writer, I’ve had problems with that so-called “political correctness,” as it prefers clunky euphemisms and acronym-ridden in-group jargon to clear, vivid phrases. I’ve covered housing issues for more than 30 years, and don’t understand why some people think there’s an important distinction between “homeless people” and “unhoused persons.”

Still, at least people who insist on saying “unhoused persons” believe the changed language will somehow lead others to see homeless people as human beings, not some subhuman degeneration. This committee’s name change to “workforce” is far-right political correctness. It seeks to exclude the word “labor” and its reverberations from public discourse.

The committee’s Republicans regularly filled my work inbox with emails lambasting the Protecting the Right to Organize Act as a “union bosses’ wish list,” and saying that prevailing-wage laws denied jobs to construction workers who’d work for more “competitive” wages. Their reference to people “who aren’t classified as conventional employees” means independent contractors, who the far right would like to keep under their employers’ control, but free from burdensome government regulations like having the legal rights to get paid minimum wage and overtime; to be eligible for workers’ compensation and unemployment benefits; and to organize collectively. The semantic gymnastics of separating them from “employees” will advance that agenda, they hope.

The workers’ right they care about most is being free from “union bosses.” In practice, that means if you’re not happy with your working conditions or get laid off or fired, you have the right not to let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

And if it does, there’s probably some corporate lawyer devising paperwork in which the axed worker agrees to indemnify the employer against any and all liability for injuries to the gluteal region.