{"id":20526,"date":"2020-05-04T21:56:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T21:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=20526"},"modified":"2020-05-05T22:00:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T22:00:49","slug":"we-call-workers-essential-but-is-that-just-referring-to-the-work-not-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/we-call-workers-essential-but-is-that-just-referring-to-the-work-not-the-people\/","title":{"rendered":"We call workers ‘essential’ \u2013 but is that just referring to the work, not the people?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zachary Jaggers<\/a>, University of Oregon<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By this point in the coronavirus pandemic, you\u2019ve probably heard a lot about \u201cessential workers<\/a>.\u201d They\u2019re the people working in hospitals and grocery stores, on farms and in meatpacking plants. They\u2019re keeping public transit, shipping and utilities running.<\/p>\n

But is \u201cessential\u201d describing the workers themselves? Or only the work they do?<\/p>\n

Right now, many don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re being treated like they\u2019re essential, and workers at Amazon, Walmart and other companies have organized strikes<\/a> to protest unsafe working conditions.<\/p>\n

There seems to be a disconnect between how some low-wage workers are being described and what they\u2019re experiencing on the ground.<\/p>\n

As an expert in sociolinguistics, I can\u2019t stress enough the importance of framing<\/a> \u2013 how we emphasize perspectives and priorities through our wordings \u2013 during a situation like this pandemic. Approaching the phrases \u201cessential workers\u201d and \u201cessential work\u201d with a linguistic eye can help explain why the people doing the work feel cut out of the frame.<\/p>\n

Why we\u2019re even saying \u2018essential\u2019<\/h2>\n

Usually, when we say something is essential, we say it\u2019s essential to or for something \u2013 for example, \u201cProper gear is essential for completing this mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Normally, almost everyone would say their work is essential for some reason. But because of the pandemic\u2019s immediate threat to human life<\/a>, essential work is now widely understood as work deemed necessary to meet basic needs of human survival and well-being \u2013 food, health, safety and cleaning.<\/p>\n

And yet many of the people on the front lines completing this essential work \u2013 the so-called \u201cessential workers\u201d \u2013 have experienced a lack of adequate safety measures, supplies and risk compensation<\/a>. Health care workers don\u2019t have enough face masks<\/a>, and poultry packing plants are crowding workers too close together<\/a>. Thousands in each<\/a> sector<\/a> have contracted COVID-19 \u2013 disproportionately people from already disadvantaged groups like African Americans<\/a> and immigrants<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

It makes you wonder whether some of these workers are considered all that essential. Might \u201cexpendable<\/a>\u201d be a more fitting term?<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re seeing with the phrase \u201cessential worker\u201d is what linguists call \u201cmacrocosmic synecdoche<\/a>,\u201d which happens when we refer to a bigger thing or group than what we mean. For example, you might say \u201cThe U.S. has negotiated a trade deal.\u201d In reality, this means the president, the secretary of commerce and their staffs participated in the negotiation, but not every member of the U.S. population.<\/p>\n

What some essential workers are feeling is a case of macrocosmic synecdoche, in which \u201cessential\u201d is only really applying to the \u201cwork\u201d part of \u201cworker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essential to what?<\/h2>\n

Other workers are questioning<\/a> why their work is even being described as \u201cessential.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some states, construction has been deemed essential work. But some construction workers think their work isn\u2019t really meeting a basic human need; they\u2019ve decided to stay home and avoid the risks of showing up at the workplace<\/a>, despite sacrificing potential income.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Many others, like those working in liquor stores<\/a> and automotive manufacturing plants<\/a>, wish they could shelter in place but can\u2019t afford to miss out on the income. They feel their work is really only \u201cessential\u201d to their employers to \u201chelp them make money,\u201d as one Walgreens worker put it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What they\u2019re perceiving is what linguists call \u201cmetonymy<\/a>\u201d: when you say something that\u2019s associated with what you mean to refer to but doesn\u2019t actually represent it. Our pandemic-era meaning of \u201cessential work\u201d refers to work that\u2019s needed to meet basic human needs and safety while sheltering in place. Many people feel they\u2019re putting themselves at risk to do jobs that are sustaining economic vitality but labeled by the government and their employers as \u201cessential\u201d to human vitality.<\/p>\n

The tension between human vitality and economic vitality is clear in the ongoing discussions and recent protests about reopening the economy<\/a> and more in-person business. Many are concerned that economic vitality is at risk if shelter-in-place measures continue too long, framed by concerns that the human vitality of many depends on their economic vitality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These discussions ought to be centered on how the people on the front lines are affected<\/a>, and how to best ensure they\u2019re well-compensated and protected. Once people are treated as essential, the more accurate the \u201cessential worker\u201d moniker becomes \u2013 and the more likely these workers can continue doing the jobs that sustain the rest of society.<\/p>\n

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.<\/em> Read The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>.]\"The<\/p>\n

Zachary Jaggers<\/a>, Postdoctoral Scholar of Linguistics, University of Oregon<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zachary Jaggers, University of Oregon By this point in the coronavirus pandemic, you\u2019ve probably heard a lot about \u201cessential workers.\u201d They\u2019re the people working in hospitals and grocery stores, on farms and in meatpacking plants. They\u2019re keeping public transit, shipping and utilities running. But is \u201cessential\u201d describing the workers themselves? Or only the work they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":20527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[7559,356,149,6226,4151,7110,509],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20528,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20526\/revisions\/20528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}