The Catholic Church: on LABOR

The Catholic Church: on LABOR
(article submitted by Jim Russo)

The Church celebrates the feast of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1, the same day that people throughout the world celebrate Labor Day. Let's take a few minutes to review Catholic teaching on Labor. 

Pope Leo XIII, in his 1891 letter On the Condition of Labor (Rerum Novarum) recognized workers rights to join together in unions, and argued that a worker had a right to a wage sufficient to support the worker and his or her family. The workers' rights also extended, said Pope Leo, to reasonable hours, rest periods, health safeguards, and a decent work environment. This commitment of the church to the working person was reaffirmed in the encyclical of Pope Pius XII, 

Quadragesimo Anno, written on the 40th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, and by Pope John XXIII in his own encyclical, Mater Et Magistra (1961). 

Pope John Paul II picked up the theme in his 1981 encyclical On Human Work.  

"Created in God's image, we were given the mandate to transform the earth. By their work people share in God's creating activity....Awareness that our work is a sharing in God's work ought to permeate even the most ordinary daily activities. … By our labor we are unfolding the Creator's work and contributing to the realization of God's plan on earth. The Christian message does not stop us from building the world or make us neglect our fellow human beings. On the contrary it binds us more firmly to do just that. 

"We must remember the priority of labor over capital: labor is the cause of production; capital, or the means of production, is its mere instrument or tool… Workers not only want fair pay, they also want to share in the responsibility and creativity of the very work process. They want to feel that they are working for themselves -- an awareness that is smothered in a bureaucratic system where they only feel themselves to be 'cogs' in a huge machine moved from above. 

"The justice of a social and economic system is finally measured by the way in which a person's work is rewarded. According to the principle of the common use of goods, it is through the remuneration for work that in any system most people have access to these goods, both the goods of nature and those manufactured. A just wage is a concrete measure -and in a sense the key one- of the justice of a system." 

In Centesimus Annus (1991) John Paul II said, "…society and the State must ensure wage levels adequate for the maintenance of the worker and his family, including a certain amount for savings. This requires a continuous effort to improve workers' training and capability so that their work will 

be more skilled and productive, as well as careful controls and adequate legislative measures to block shameful forms of exploitation, especially to the disadvantage of the most vulnerable workers, of immigrants and of those on the margins of society. The role of trade unions in negotiating minimum salaries and working conditions is decisive in this area."

Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, Chairman of the US Bishop's Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, wrote last year, "Officially over 12 million workers are looking for work but cannot find a job and millions more have actually given up seeking employment. Millions more are 

underemployed; ... over 46 million people live in poverty and, most disturbingly, over 16 million children grow up poor in our nation. The link between joblessness and poverty is undeniable. 

"The exploitation of working people, whether subtle or obvious, injures their humanity and denies their inherent dignity. Exploited and mistreated workers require our care and solidarity. An economy that allows this exploitation and abuse demands our attention and action. As the bishops point out in the Catholic Framework for Economic Life, 'By our choices, initiative, creativity, and investment, we enhance or diminish economic opportunity, community life, and social justice.' We should ask: How do we contribute to forces that threaten the human dignity of vulnerable workers? How can our choices in economic and public life enhance their lives, pursue economic justice, and promote opportunity?"