Hi Jon,
It depends of your SAP CRM release, from SAP CRM EHp2 you have this functionality.
But if you have another SAP CRM release (7.0, 7.01) you dont have this functionality and you have to use design layer.
If you want to change field labels across multiple views, you can use the design layer to consolidate the field changes. You define these settings in Customizing for UI Framework under 
UI Framework Definition 
Design Layer 
.
Best regards