Against ‘Human Resources’
Consider the phrase, “Human Resources Department”. You find that name in academic and corporate bureaucracies; and no doubt in government too. What an insulting name!
For am I a seam of coal? A vein of ore? A stand of pine? Those are resources; they have no rights. They can be used up and then discarded. Are humans to be treated that way too?
The phrase “human resources”, bespeaks a management attitude in some ways worse than chattel slavery. Chattel means cattle; a chattel slave is livestock, owned by the owner. But a resource is not even animate; it is a passive source of extraction; so a human resource lacks even the right of animals not be abused.
Surely there are other names for the hiring department? Such as “Hiring Department”? Or better yet, “Labor Relations Department”? I am not just any human, I am a worker, I work for them; and I am not a resource, I am as human as my employers and I must be related to.
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