"Right to work" is not a neutral term

Jason Salzman writes Saturday in the Rocky Mountain News that the term “right to work” shows bias in reporting.

Salzman writes, “Rocky reporter Joanne Kelley told me she and others have been ‘really careful to describe how the laws work and what it all means.’ That’s true. But labels matter, and Kelley and Vuong said I was raising a valid issue.

“Kelley puts ‘right to work’ in quotation marks to ‘signal it’s been dubbed with that label by others.’ Kelley points out that she’s even seen a union use the term.

“So what? The goal should be the pursuit of fairness, and I suggested to Kelley that, to be fairer, she should alternate between using ‘right to work’ and ‘right to work for less’ as descriptions for Amendment 47.

“Overhearing my conversation with Kelley, Rocky business editor Rob Reutemann rejected my suggestion because ‘one is an editorial comment [right to work for less], and one is not [right to work].’

“To me, both ‘right to work’ and ‘right to work for less’ are editorial comments, particularly because ‘right to work’ isn’t even part of the Amendment 47’s actual ballot language.”

Read more here.