diff --git a/src/Text/Pandoc/Readers/LaTeX.hs b/src/Text/Pandoc/Readers/LaTeX.hs
index 56eb85064..3292550b2 100644
--- a/src/Text/Pandoc/Readers/LaTeX.hs
+++ b/src/Text/Pandoc/Readers/LaTeX.hs
@@ -1575,7 +1575,8 @@ treatAsInline = Set.fromList
 dolabel :: PandocMonad m => LP m Inlines
 dolabel = do
   v <- braced
-  return $ spanWith ("",[],[("label", toksToString v)])
+  let refstr = toksToString v
+  return $ spanWith (refstr,[],[("label", refstr)])
     $ inBrackets $ str $ toksToString v
 
 doref :: PandocMonad m => String -> LP m Inlines
diff --git a/test/command/refs.md b/test/command/refs.md
index 78af1ebdd..66959e5c3 100644
--- a/test/command/refs.md
+++ b/test/command/refs.md
@@ -50,5 +50,5 @@ Figure \ref{fig:Logo} illustrated the SVG logo
 % pandoc -f latex -t native
 \label{section} Section \ref{section}
 ^D
-[Para [Span ("",[],[("label","section")]) [Str "[section]"],Space,Str "Section",Space,Link ("",[],[("reference-type","ref"),("reference","section")]) [Str "[section]"] ("#section","")]]
+[Para [Span ("section",[],[("label","section")]) [Str "[section]"],Space,Str "Section",Space,Link ("",[],[("reference-type","ref"),("reference","section")]) [Str "[section]"] ("#section","")]]
 ```