Since its first great social encyclical Rerum Novarum, the Catholic Church has never refrained from delivering its singular contribution to the question of human work. The main interest of Rerum Novarum was the need for some improvement regarding “the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class” (§ 3).

Gradually, the Church understood that a powerful tool in transforming the workers’ misery and wretchedness into a dignified way of living lies in the appreciation of the working activity of the workers. One way of showing this is paying them a just wage.

Every worker is entitled for a just wage. Rerum Novarum says that “the preservation of life is the bounden duty of one and all, and to be wanting therein is a crime. It necessarily follows that each one has a natural right to procure what is required in order to live, and the poor can procure that in no other way than by what they can earn through their work” (§ 44). Pope Leo XIII states that just wage is the responsibility “of one and all”.

Is this not the first promulgation of the Church’s principle of solidarity which, a century later, Blessed John Paul II was to define so strongly in his encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis? Is solidarity not the fulfilment of the vision that “we are all really responsible for all” (§ 38)?

What does this responsibility for all really imply in practice? Blessed John XXIII gives his answer in Mater et Magistra. “We therefore consider it our duty to reaffirm that the remuneration of work is not something that can be left to the laws of the marketplace; nor should it be a decision left to the will of the more powerful. It must be determined in accordance with justice and equity; which means that workers must be paid a wage which allows them to live a truly human life and to fulfil their family obligations in a worthy manner” (§ 71). For Pope John, justice and equity are the criteria for a just wage. Are there any conditions, besides the latter, that need to be taken into consideration before a just wage is stipulated?

In Quadragesimo anno, Pope Pius XI said that “in determining the amount of the wage, the condition of a business and of the one carrying it on must also be taken into account; for it would be unjust to demand excessive wages which a business cannot stand without its ruin and consequent calamity to the workers” (§ 72). Moreover, Pius is aware that “an excessive lowering of wages, or their increase beyond due measure, causes unemployment” (§ 74).

Blessed John XXIII lists other factors which determine a just wage. These include “the effective contribution which each individual makes to the economic effort, the financial state of the company for which he works, the requirements of the general good of the particular country – having regard especially to the repercussions on the overall employment of the working force in the country as a whole – and finally the requirements of the common good on the universal family of nations of every kind, both large and small” (§ 71).

Finally, it was Blessed John Paul II who came with the innovative phrase “family wage”. In Laborem exercens, he says that “just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remuneration which will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future” (§19).

Given the huge contribution the Church has offered in this area, is it not wise to actively include it within the consultations on just wage?

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap