This is not the language of gratitude

February 27, 2021 11:28 AM

The "Essential Worker" Swindle "People say we're heroes and everything -- but it doesn't feel like we're heroes. It feels like we don't have a choice."

Here is a link to Warehouse Workers for Justice.

posted by RobinofFrocksley (24 comments total)

Well, yes. That's the entire point: calling them "heroes" is another way to express appreciation for them in a way that doesn't involve money. It's the newest iteration of a work pizza party.
posted by mightygodking at 11:44 AM on February 27, 2021 [71 favorites]

My personal favorite was the Dems' 2020 HEROES Act that proposed significant, retroactive, federally-funded hazard pay for essential workers, a "heroes fund" which was seconded in Biden's platform. But once they won complete control, the provision magically disappeared without even bothering to water it down or force Republicans to block it. Best we got was Biden's toothless statement that he would "call on CEOs and other business leaders to take action to meet these obligations." I'm sure they'll get right on that.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:50 AM on February 27, 2021 [62 favorites]

I thought it was well understood by now that "essential" is just a euphemism for "sacrificial".
posted by mstokes650 at 12:01 PM on February 27, 2021 [43 favorites]

I remember snow days, growing up in the DC suburbs. The word would go out on the radio that only essential government workers should go downtown, to work that day. So almost everybody went to work, since nobody wanted to be seen as non-essential -- that would mean you could be laid off, a vulnerable target given a Reduction In Force. With so many WFH now, that thinking seems to have been changed by the pandemic. Temporarily.
posted by Rash at 12:09 PM on February 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

‘Don’t let them pay you in flattery’ is a solid lesson every young person should receive when they start work
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 12:11 PM on February 27, 2021 [74 favorites]

Citations Needed's latest episode: The "Essential Worker" Racket - How 'COVID Hero' Discourse Is Used To Discipline Labor is an acute analysis of precisely this rhetorical ploy.
posted by progosk at 12:25 PM on February 27, 2021 [14 favorites]

I used to work for the Army, and after 9/11, it was similar for soldiers. I got pretty cynical, because it felt like all patriotism meant was shedding a few sentimental tears at a commerical about a Soldier and his Dog.
posted by olykate at 12:51 PM on February 27, 2021 [16 favorites]

I got pretty cynical, because it felt like all patriotism meant was shedding a few sentimental tears at a commerical about a Soldier and his Dog.

Co-signed except I am a New Yorker and it was similar for first responders.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:23 PM on February 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

It's the newest iteration of a work pizza party.

There's sheet cake in the ICU
posted by thelonius at 1:50 PM on February 27, 2021 [22 favorites]

An ex-friend of mine who was a teacher got extremely angry during a sanitation workers’ strike (he thought they were already overpaid for “unskilled” work) here in Toronto when I said that in my opinion their jobs were more important in the short and medium-term to the city than ours were.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:59 PM on February 27, 2021 [16 favorites]

The difference between an essential worker and a hero is that heros volunteer to save the world. Essential workers mostly don't have a choice, there are bills to pay and mouths to feed. It's not the same thing at all. Just another example of big business twisting the meaning of, and deliberately miss-using, language for their own gain. The earliest and best example I can think of is Disney and it's "cast members" and "guests." Twisting language to erase the real relationship going on between a customer who pays for a service, and an employee who has a right to be paid fairly.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 2:04 PM on February 27, 2021 [11 favorites]

Well, as long as the shareholders make bank, what's the problem? Seems like everything's working smoothly.
posted by dazed_one at 2:37 PM on February 27, 2021

In Seattle, when the city council mandated a $4/hr temporary pay bump to grocery store workers, the opposing views shifted between Kroger being justified in shutting down two stores and firing workers in response, as a business decision, to asking why other front-line workers (nurses, teachers, etc.) hadn't been given pay raises. The resentment for labor is definitely showing the cracks in society.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:54 PM on February 27, 2021 [17 favorites]

One of Ursula Vernon’s novels points out that heroism is needed when society has failed.
posted by clew at 3:00 PM on February 27, 2021 [33 favorites]

Heroes, by definition, make sacrifices. Calling workers heroes is a unilateral redrafting of expectations disguised as praise.
posted by acb at 4:12 PM on February 27, 2021 [18 favorites]

Dali Adekunle wrote about this last June: Essential Workers are the New “Magical Negro" - How understanding this cinematic trope can illuminate COVID-era exploitation
posted by johnabbe at 4:34 PM on February 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Having worked for a few companies and organizations, I wonder how essential the highest paid workers are? There seems to be an inverse relationship between essentialness and income. To me, essential means necessary and to be necessary means required. However, in the minds of those on high, essential workers are interchangeable units, just a job position to be filled by anyone. There is this management blindness that these people at the bottom of the org chart are real people risking their and their families lives being on the job. Calling them heroes is just cheap praise. “Yes, you’re essential, now go back to work.”
posted by njohnson23 at 4:37 PM on February 27, 2021 [13 favorites]

I used to work for the Army, and after 9/11, it was similar for soldiers. I got pretty cynical, because it felt like all patriotism meant was shedding a few sentimental tears at a commerical about a Soldier and his Dog.

As one veteran of my acquaintance observed, the nigh-ubiquitous yellow ribbon magnets and stickers that started appearing on vehicles everywhere when the US was gearing up for the Iraq war in the early aughts said "support the troops", not "support the veterans."
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:51 PM on February 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

They really do need hazard pay. (E-Workers) I am not going to fault Biden too hard (the guy just entered office after five people died from a preventable pseudo ..coup), but the lack of common sense is just absurd.




do the patients get some of the icu cake
is it birthday cake or red velvet
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:55 PM on February 27, 2021

calling them "heroes" is another way to express appreciation for them in a way that doesn't involve money

It's been remarked but the VA has been doing this since 'Nam.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:21 AM on February 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

This is me, although UK. Read part of it and gonna go off on one. Logging out now. Cheers for the link
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 3:01 PM on February 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Whenever our executive directors start rolling out terms like "you're on the frontlines" and "you're in the trenches," it's a signal that the rest of the statement will be empty mouth noises which I can safely disregard.
posted by EatTheWeek at 3:06 PM on February 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

An ex-friend of mine who was a teacher got extremely angry during a sanitation workers’ strike (he thought they were already overpaid for “unskilled” work) here in Toronto when I said that in my opinion their jobs were more important in the short and medium-term to the city than ours were.

Doubtless their strike demonstrated how important their labor is, as that's the entire point.
posted by Gelatin at 5:06 AM on March 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

> Doubtless their strike demonstrated how important their labor is, as that's the entire point.

You would hope so, but the unhappy ending is that the citizenry's anger about the strike and the fact that the Mayor at the time (David Miller) didn't just fire them all for their impertinence was almost certainly one of the contributing factors to Miller's decision to not run again and the subsequent election of Rob Ford.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:56 AM on March 1, 2021 [1 favorite]