Catholic Social Doctrine: The Right to a Just or Living Wage

The worker's labor is what allows him to "gain access to the goods of the earth."  It is what allows him "the means to cultivate worthily his own material, social, cultural, and spiritual life and that of his dependents."  Failure to pay him a just wage shuts him out of this endeavor.  It is for this reason that mere agreement between laborer and employer is not an assurance of a "just wage."

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - The relationship between employees and their employers is one that is based or ought to be based upon convention-a free and uncoerced agreement between employer and employee.  But the relationship is not only conventional, it is also one that has an underlying nature, and so has a natural law and justice associated with it which the convention ought to reflect and certainly not contradict. 

The convention is based upon the natural relation of employer and employee, and is meant to implement it.  And just like a conventional law that is unjust is no law at all (lex iniusta non est lex), so an agreement between employee and employer is no agreement at all if it is unjust (contractus iniustus non est contractus).

At its most simple, the employment relationship is between two human persons, and justice is what ought to govern that relationship.  Modernly, more often than not, however, the employer is an impersonal institution, an organization, a corporation, a fictional person.  Modernly, it is also true that the possibility always lurks of a disparity in bargaining power between a monied employer and an unmonied employee.  These can affect that relationship adversely, affect the parties' relative bargaining powers, and lead to injustice.

Unfortunately, between corporate fiction, bureaucracy, and power disparity the human element in the relationship is often lost and abuse and injustice becomes possible.  Most often, it is the worker who is at a disadvantage, and it is often a "sad fact" that workers are "underpaid and without protection or adequate representation." 

Conditions of workers, especially in developing countries, are often so inhumane that they offend the dignity and health of workers.  For this reason, the Church has focused on the rights of the worker as against the employer, though the worker certainly has reciprocal rights owed to his employer. The rights are not all one-way.

In order to protect the relationship of justice that ought to exist between the employed and the employer, the Church has been quite insistent on worker's rights, and has been so since she first addressed the social question.  "The rights of workers, like all other rights, are based on the nature of the human person and on his transcendent dignity." (Compendium, No. 301) 

What this means is that the rights of workers as the Church understands them are part and parcel of the natural moral law.  These rights are based upon the nature of the employment relationship and the fact that such relationship is one that involves a person whose labor is being sought.

Though the rights of the worker are based upon the natural law and so immutable, their application in contingent circumstances might vary.  (Here, we are dealing largely with determinations of principles, here, not first principles.)  For example, how these rights operate in the concrete would be different if we are looking at the employment relationship between one tribesman and another in the village of Mpintimpi in Ghana or the employment between a laborer and his employer in the heart of Milan, Chicago, Birmingham, or Hamburg.  They are also historically conditioned.  What was appropriate in medieval Paris is not necessarily appropriate in contemporary Paris.

There are certain rights of workers that the Church in her social doctrine has identified, and we may aggregate them into what might be called a worker's Bill of Rights.  It should be understood, however, that these rights as enumerated in the Compendium presuppose a very advanced economy, and so not all of them may apply or they may not apply in the same way in simpler employment conditions. 

Some of these rights are more quantitative, while others are more qualitative.  Finally, not all of them are the responsibility of the employer, as some are the responsibility of the society at large, or intermediate social or charitable institutions, or of the local, regional, or national governments.  Some of these could even be the individual's responsibility to implement either partially or wholly (e.g., purchasing insurance and saving money to provide for retirement).

-    The right to a just (or living) wage
-    The right to rest
-    The right to safe and morally acceptable working environments and manufacturing processes
-    The right to have one's conscience and personal dignity respected
-    The right to appropriate subsidies necessary for the subsistence of unemployed workers and their families
-    The right to pension and to insurance for old age, sickness, and work-related accidents
-    The right to social security in connection with maternity
-    The right to assembly and to form associations such as unions

(Compendium, No. 301)

One of the central features of the relationship between employer and employee is remuneration.  Remuneration is the entire package of recompense to the worker in exchange for his labor to the business enterprise.  There must be justice between worker and employer, and "remuneration is the most important means for achieving justice in work relationships."  When that remuneration is just, that is, when it conforms to natural justice, the Church refers to it as a "just wage." Sometimes it is referred to as a "living wage."

There is a rich Biblical tradition which underlies the Church's insistence that it is a "grave injustice" to "refuse to pay a just wage" or to refuse to give a just wage "in due time and in due proportion to the work done." (Compendium, No. 302)  "You shall not defraud or rob your neighbor. You shall not withhold overnight the wages of your day laborer." (Lev. 19:13)

"Behold," says the Apostle James in his epistle echoing the Law and the Prophets, "the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts." (James 5:4) It is a deeply traditional and properly pconservative spirit--as old as the prophets--that lies behind the Church's insistence that the employer ought to pay a just wage. We are dealing with a moral injunction which trumps economic motive or justifications.

The worker's labor is what allows him to "gain access to the goods of the earth."  It is what allows him "the means to cultivate worthily his own material, social, cultural, and spiritual life and that of his dependents."  Failure to pay him a just wage shuts him out of this endeavor.  It is for this reason that mere agreement between laborer and employer is not an assurance of a "just wage."

Convention is not sufficient if the underlying justice is violated.  Unquestionably, free agreement (convention) is an important element of assessing a "just wage."  A wage that is forced upon two parties acting in good faith is not just.  But agreement, while a necessary condition for a just wage, is not a sufficient condition for a just wage. 

A wage "must not be below the level of subsistence," and if it is, "natural justice precedes and is above the freedom of the contract." (Compendium, No. 302) (quoting Leo XIII, Rerum novarum).  An unjust wage implies that there has been an unjust distribution of income. Either the employer (through greater profit) or society at large (through cheap goods) has obtained benefit unjustly at the expense of the employee.

"The economic well-being is not measured exclusively by the quantity of goods it produces but also by taking into account the manner in which they are produced and the level of equity in the distribution of income, which should allow everyone access to what is necessary for their personal development and perfection." 

"An equitable distribution of income is to be sought on the basis of criteria not merely of commutative justice but also of social justice that is, considering, beyond the objective value of the work rendered, the human dignity of the subject who perform it.  Authentic economic well-being is pursued also by means of suitable social policies for the redistribution of income which, taking general conditions into account, look at merit as well as the need of each citizen."  (Compendium, No. 303)

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Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas.  He is married with three children.  He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law called Lex Christianorum.  You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.

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