Labor Day was about a week ago, and I resisted the impulse then to comment on the “state” of labor: it’s too hard to be sympathetic about the significant number of job losses over the past year, while remaining realistic about the circumstances that caused this and the prospects for reversing the situation.

(The decline in employment totals is especially bad in manufacturing industries, and notably grim in metalcasting; happily, some of the Grede Foundries sites that have been spared the worst of the ongoing reorganization there are starting to recall laid-off workers.)

In view of all that, a celebration of “labor” seems to me misplaced. It’s not that I discount the hard work of good people; it’s that the work itself has become so discounted.

For a better understanding of what I mean, read this report on the prospects for a significant rebound of overall employment levels. You won’t need to take my word for it; the great economic guru of the 1990s, and now the director of the President's National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers reveals what people in manufacturing already know: almost no high-capital industry really needs “big labor.”

By contrast, they need intelligent, resourceful workers who can adapt to changing markets and fast-evolving technical standards.

Pressure to defer to the labor interests, pressure that comes from government authorities, company stockholders and directors, as well as from general social niceties, merely forestalls an inevitable realization. Companies that overpay for labor cannot compete globally, nationally, or regionally.  Seeking labor peace does not bring security, and the lack of security ensures further unrest.

As I see it, the problem is the emphasis on “labor.” The word implies large forces of workers doing manual and menial tasks in cruelly unrewarding conditions. Even the workers who seek our empathy don’t want to be characterized that way.

We should refer instead to their “skills,” not their labor. That would emphasize the value those workers bring to their tasks, and direct our attention away from their struggle to earn the value created by their efforts. It would also put some substance behind the frequent (but increasingly empty) calls for training and retraining programs. If we’re going to make such efforts and investments, let’s at least change our expectations from the outcome.