Church Labour Theory Ñ Still Good News
by Jim Consedine
Reprinted from The
Common Good, Issue #1, Summer 1996
The hospitality industry is one major provider of
work decimated by the Employment Contracts Act. It has become almost totally a
part time casual employer of labour resulting in insecurity becoming a dominant
feature of workersÕ lives.
Take Susan. She is 23 years old and has worked on and
off for six years. She never knows whether she has four hours work a week, ten
hours or twenty. While her hourly rate is just a tick under nine dollars, she
has to supplement her wages by registering at Income Support. In effect the
government subsidises her. Income Support expects her to be looking for another
part-time job to enable her to get her off their books. Her restaurant boss,
though, wants her on 24 hour call, seven days a week, Ôin case anything comes
up. We are looking at you for a possible permanent job.Õ While Susan loves her
contact with the public and likes her work, she feels degraded and humiliated
that she has to constantly negotiate her position both with her boss and Income
Support.
This reflects just the tip of the Employment
Contracts iceberg. SusanÕs situation is now part of the working fabric of the
Ôeconomic miracleÕ in Aotearoa. It reflects something of the injustice the
Employment Contracts Act has spawned in this country.
On Human Work
Such situations should never arise in a country
governed justly. This point is brought home clearly in a re-reading of Pope
John Paul II encyclical ÔOn Human WorkÕ (Laborem Exercens) which celebrates its
15th birthday this month. Published to commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of
ÔThe Workers CharterÕ (Rerum Novarum) published in 1891, it took traditional
Church social teaching to new heights in identifying the absolute priority of
labour over capital, the need for solidarity among workers in order to protect
and enhance their dignity, the importance of trade unions and the struggle all
should engage in if true justice and peace is to prevail in the world.
The more immediate context for the letter (encyclical
is a Church name for a lengthy official letter) was the rise of Solidarity in
Poland, the escalation of the East-West divide being signalled by the Reagan
administration, and the continued fossilisation of state socialism in Eastern
bloc countries.
Into this arena rode the relatively new pope, three
years into his role as chief shepherd of the Church. In the letter he draws on
major social teachings of earlier Church documents in relation to workers and on
issues of justice and peace. It reiterates the teaching that people are made in
the image and likeness of God and have an inherent dignity. It confirms earlier
teachings that workers are the priority in the workplace, not modes of
production, profit nor the product itself.
Gregory Baum, from whose book ÔThe Priority of
LabourÕ (Paulist Press, 1982) I have drawn many insights, writes
The popeÕs central message is the priority of labour
over capital. Capital is meant to serve labour, which means serve the workers
in the industry, the expansion of the industry and the entire labouring
society. The violation of this principle in Western capitalism and in Eastern
collectivism is the source of oppression and misery in society. The workersÕ
struggle for justice must aim at a social system in which the priority of
labour over capital is observed. This happens through the introduction of the
co-ownership of labour on the one hand, and of a responsibly planned economy on
the other. The struggle for justice, carried on by the exploited joined in
solidarity, must be supported by those who love justice, which includes the
entire Church. Only through such a struggle will justice come into a society.
The encyclical argues that the whole of contemporary
humanity is awakening to the evils of enslavement and yearns for liberation.
The forward movement of contemporary history is then the struggle of the
oppressed, joined by all those who
love justice.
But it takes such teaching much further. It
defines human beings in relation to the work they do. It thus gives work a new dignity in relation to the
worker. Rather than work being seen as something unpleasant but necessary, John
Paul defines work as a fundamental dimension of our existence on earth. Drawing
on scriptural tradition, work is presented as part of ongoing creation. Workers
participate in creation.
He takes a much broader definition than did Karl Marx
in his writings. Unlike the later Marx, he places great emphasis on the
subjective dimension of labour. What happens to the subject of work is more
important than what this work produces.
Here John Paul is drawing on the French personalists
like Emmanuel Mounier who emphasise peoplesÕ growth in dignity, in wisdom and
maturity, through fidelity, commitment and self development. The workplace is
where much of this should take place.
This line of thinking takes a clear separate approach
to Marxist determinism as practised in Eastern Europe at the time and to
economic liberalism as espoused by the New Right. It is clearly at total
variance with the current market economy. The Church has consistently pointed
out that todayÕs market economy protects the power of the rich, the resourceful
and the clever, and allows them to triumph over the poor, the modest and the
simple. Catholic social teaching has always insisted that it is the task of
government to promote and protect the common good and to defend the poor
against exploitation.
Condemning the Market Economy
The encyclical presents the central conflict which
causes oppression, alienation, wars and devastation as being one between
capital and labour. It sees the power wielded by an elite group of
entrepreneurs, owners and major shareholders, and the broader multitude of
people who share in the production process solely by their labour. (#11) It
argues that capital in the last analysis is only a collection of things.
Primacy in the production process must be given to the subject. Capital,
production and labour are united in the identical subject.
This leads to some obvious conclusions regarding
co-operative work and management/labour relations. We are all in it together.
Everyone should combine to protect the best interests of all those involved.
Mutual respect is at the heart of such an approach. Respect for management,
respect for investors, respect for workers.
John Paul goes on to define justice as including
access for members of the work force in both decision making and a proper share
in the wealth created. He promotes work co-operatives, credit unions and other
forms of industrial and economic democracy. He continues to promote trade
unions as being essential for creating and sustaining worker solidarity, and
defends the workersÕ right to strike when all other non-violent options have
failed.
The encyclical also promotes the ideas of a planned
economy, while arguing at the same time for a decentralisation of power within
the workplace. Its argument is that in a society where different parts are
interdependent one upon the other, production and distribution cannot be left
to the economic giants, the transnationals, who plan the economy in view of
maximising their profits. We need a rational plan for the economy, he argues,
to be worked out by the various sectors of society which the government adopts
and implements. Because of the maldistribution of wealth and raw materials in
the world, the planning of the economy will be required through national
governments but would also have to involve international consultation so that
the poorer nations would not be excluded from the worldÕs resources (#18).
As Baum says, the tension between the two principles,
the principle of de-centralisation (the democratisation of industries) and the
principle of centralisation (the planned economy) constitutes a dynamic process
in society which protects the wellbeing of all and the relative freedom of
persons and groups of persons.
Conclusion
This was an historic landmark document most of which
is still totally relevant today. Why, you may well ask, do so few know of its
teachings? In the New Zealand market economy of the 1990s, it challenges most
of the foundation principles of that economy.
It is not without its shortcomings. It fails the
gender test miserably. It also fails to acknowledge that the institutional
Church has not practised and does not always practise what it preaches in
relation to both economic theory and labour relations.
But it is a major text with creative ideas of a
vigorous thinker. It certainly deserves a re-read, as in this country at least,
its principles are more applicable now 15 years on than when it first appeared.