StThomasMore
Christian Democrat
Actually what we evil republicans have an issue with is the abuses carried out by unions and the modern union mentality of doing as little of work as possible for the most money we can get and using union dues to support whatever candidates that the union bosses determine who is worthy of union dues money. How about the strangle hold that public sector unions have placed on the tax payers.
I have no problem with unions. They are a great thing if done in moderation, but when it gets to the point that unions are putting a big enough strangle hold on companies that it forces jobs to go overseas then I have a problem.
If workers exploitation didn't exist , then unions wouldn't be needed. That's why they were created in the first place.
Going overseas to take advantage of workers who are willing to take extremely low wages because they are destitute is another form of workers explotation and abuse. Rerem Novarem explicitly condemns this:
"Wealthy owners of the means of production and employers must never forget that both divine and human law forbid them to squeeze the poor and wretched for the sake of gain or to profit from the helplessness of others."(#17)
"As regards protection of this world’s good, the first task is to save the wretched workers from the brutality of those who make use of human beings as mere instruments for the unrestrained acquisition of wealth."
As the Catholic Church states, the main goal of the proper treatment of workers and workers rights is the right to a living wage, where the worker and employer can bargain based on the basic living needs of the worker. This would help even out the gaping work inequality among the blue and white collar.
The U.S. Catholic bishops gave the need for a living wage priority in their Statement on Church and Social Order (1940):
The first claim of labor, which takes priority over any claim of the owners to profits, respects the right to a living wage. By the term living wage we understand a wage sufficient not merely for the decent support of the workingman himself but also of his family
Quadragesimo Anno (1931), “In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family.”
I'm not saying one should force companies to pay a living wage. If a company is unable to then they should pay what they are able to. However if they are able to pay a living wage, it is an immediate thing they should do once they are able to. But a wage where a wife is forced to work because the husband is paid so low is against Catholic social teaching, since it states:
A wage so low that it must be supplemented by the wage of wife and mother or by the children of the family before it can provide adequate food, clothing, and shelter together with essential spiritual and cultural needs cannot be regarded as a living wage.
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