Thursday, January 11, 2007

Change Is In The Air; And In The House

Yes, it's true, the House of Representatives is doing some real things for the American worker, like passing a minimum wage bill. But real accomplishments are so boring. In these heady days, now the the Dems are back in control, it's the symbolic changes that most stir the spirit.

For example, when the Republicans took power in 1995, they changed the name of the House "Committee on Education and Labor" to


"Workforce?" Ugh! Can you get any more sterile and bureacratic?

But now a new day has (re)dawned on Capitol Hill:

Of course, the National Association of Manufacturers isn't very happy. According to their "Shopfloor" blog, they kind of liked the word "workforce,"

a long-overdue modernization of the name to reflect the lexicon of the modern-day work place.
Uh, right.

"What's in a name?" NAM asks.
In this case, it is a great leap backward and a clear sign to anyone who may have doubted it that the unions are firmly back in charge of the committee's agenda.
"Backward" to the future, that is.

I say Hallelujah; it's about time.