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Issue Date:  September 7, 2007

From the Editor's Desk

Human work, the essential key

Labor Day has come to mean many things in the United States: a day of rest, the end of summer, and the custom of refraining from wearing white shoes until Memorial Day. However, the holiday, first celebrated on Sept. 5, 1882, was a day to honor workers and a time to celebrate the contributions of the American labor movement -- a date of great significance for the Catholic community. The dignity of workers and the rights of workers are central elements of Catholic social teaching.

In his recent Labor Day statement, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, chairman of the Domestic Policy Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, reminds us that this year marks the 40th anniversary of Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio -- “On the Development of Peoples” -- which calls upon Catholics to accept the challenge to defend the lives and dignity of poor and vulnerable workers in our own communities and around the world and to be in solidarity with those who seek to “escape from hunger, misery, endemic disease and ignorance.”

Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Laborem Exercens, “For more than a century, the church has insisted that ‘human work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question. ... Our tradition has defended the rights of workers to join together to secure decent work, wages, and a voice in economic life.”

These encyclicals built on Rerum Novarum, promulgated in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII, the first encyclical to take up the cause of workers’ rights.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference in November 1996 published the statement “A Catholic Framework for Economic Life.” Below are some of the key principles pertinent to Labor Day:

  • The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy.
  • A fundamental moral measure of any economy is how the poor and vulnerable are faring.
  • All people have the right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life (for example, food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, safe environment, economic security).
  • All people have a right to life and to economic initiative, to productive work, to just wages and benefits, to decent working conditions as well as to organize and join unions or other associations.

Because, as Catholics, we witness publicly to these ideals, we have a special obligation to practice what we preach.

A number of years ago we had serious discussions here at NCR about whether we were living up to both Catholic social teaching and what we often advocated on our editorial pages. We found out that in some areas we fell short, so we instituted some changes. Among them was the commitment, for as long as we can sustain it, to pay 100 percent of our employee health care benefits, individual and family (minus a nominal monthly fee of $10 or $20 respectively); provide for every employee annually four weeks’ vacation, 10 sick days and three personal days, regardless of position; and contribute to every employee’s 403(b) plan whether or not the employee contributes.

Perhaps we are foolish, given the limits of our resources, but Catholic organizations and corporations cannot turn a deaf ear to the request of workers for suitable compensation and benefits and must consider with the highest priority any and all claims for a fair hearing on these matters.

Catholic social teaching is one of the Catholic church’s best kept secrets. Respect for the inherent dignity of every worker is a legacy that must be kept alive. Reaching back into our past, we can learn much from the life of Msgr. George Higgins (1916-2002), champion of workers’ rights, and other “labor priests” and Catholic labor advocates who devoted their lives to the cause of justice in the workplace. It makes me proud to be part of this rich tradition.

Below are some related Web sites:

The Catholic-Labor Network
www.catholiclabor.org
The U.S. bishops’ 2007 Labor Day statement:
www.usccb.org/sdwp/LaborDay2007.pdf
Interfaith Worker Justice
www.iwj.org

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Immaculate Heart of Mary Sr. Annmarie Sanders was recently appointed to the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company’s board of directors for a three-year term. Sanders currently serves as the director of communications for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States. She is a graduate of Fordham University, with a master of arts in public communications and holds a bachelor of social work from Marywood College, Scranton, Pa. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, Sanders worked in Peru and Bolivia for the advancement of basic human rights. She served as the associate editor of the Latinamerica Press/Noticias Aliadas in Peru. She has published numerous articles on religious life and vocations.

Sanders has served on the board of the National Communicators Network for Women Religious, and served the Scranton, Pa., diocese on the board of its Catholic Campaign for Human Development and its Ad Committee on the Image of Women Religious.

Contact me at rlarivee@ncronline.org.

-- Sr. Rita Larivee, SSA

National Catholic Reporter, September 7, 2007

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