| Catholic Social Teaching |
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The Catholic Church has a rich, full tradition of supporting workers' right to organize. Several official church documents have reinforced the Church's commitment to the individual's rights at work. "Among the basic rights of the human person is to be numbered the right of freely founding unions for working people. They should be able truly to represent them and to contribute to the organizing of economic life in the right way. Included is the right of freely taking part in the activity of these unions without risk of reprisal. Through this orderly participation joined to progressive economic and social formation, all will grow orderly participation joined to progressive economic and social formation, all will grow day by day in the awareness of their own function and responsibility, and thus they will be brought to felt hat they are comrades in the whole task of economic development and in the attainment of the universal common good according to their capacities and aptitudes." — Gaudium et Spes Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Second Vatican Council, 1965 "Catholic social teaching does not see unions as reflecting only a ‘class' structure, and even less as engaged in a ‘class' struggle. They are indeed engaged in the struggle for social justice, but this is a struggle for the common good, and not against others. Its aim is social justice and not the elimination of opponents." — On Human Work, Pope John Paul II "Labor unions themselves are challenged by the present economic environment to seek new ways of doing business. The purpose of unions is not simply to defend the existing wage sand prerogatives of the fraction of workers who belong to them, but also to enable workers to make positive and creative contributions to the firm, the community and the larger society in an organized and cooperative way. Such contributions call for experiments with new directions in the U.S. labor movement." — Economic Justice for All "All people have the right to economic initiative, to productive work, to just wages and benefits, to decent working conditions as well as to organize and join unions and other associations." — A Catholic Framework for Economic Life, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, November 1996 |
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