Article Fourth. On the Obligations of Employers and Workers

304. Obligations of employers. 1. They are bound to avoid those things which harm workers in the goods of the body.

a. They sin if they force them to labor in workshops harmful to health, or in circumstances in which they are exposed to danger of losing life or the integrity of members, if they force them to labors which greatly harm health, if they must handle poisonous things for a long time.

b. Works in which dangers to life and health cannot be sufficiently excluded can licitly be undertaken only if the reason of the common good requires works of this sort.

2. They are bound to remove those things which harm the salvation of the workers' souls.

They sin if they admit or do not dismiss workers who are a scandal to others or seduce and corrupt them; if promiscuously they force persons of both sexes, or adolescents together with adults, to labor without due precautions.

3. They are bound to have account of the Christian religion, so that they grant workers suitable time for fulfilling the offices of the Christian religion.

They sin if they force workers to labor on Sundays and feast days; but if necessity or the quality of the work requires labor even on those days, they ought at least to take care, as far as can be done, that all can be present at the sacrifice of Mass.

4. They are bound to pay workers a just wage for labor.

a. They sin if they do not pay workers the wage at the due time, or pay a wage less than just; likewise if they give goods instead of money, unless they had previously agreed with the workers about this mode of paying. There will be discussion below concerning the just wage of labor. Moreover, he who pays the common wage is ordinarily judged to have satisfied commutative justice.

b. They ought ordinarily to pay the wage, and that entire, to workers even when they have suffered losses from the unhappy outcome of a work or business.

5. They are bound not to prohibit them from work, that is, to lock them out (aussperren), where either justice or charity prohibits it.

6. They are bound to assist workers placed in necessity.

An employer is joined with his workers by a special bond, because he has entered a special society with them and, moreover, perceives profit from their work; therefore before other poor persons he ought to exercise offices of charity toward his own poor workers.

¹ Cf. Jos. Biederlack, Die soziale Frage^7 (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1908), n. 140 ff.; A. Vermeersch, Quaestiones de iustitia^2 (Brugis: Beyaert, 1904), n. 455 ss.

305. Obligations of workers. 1. They are bound to observe the conditions of a just contract freely entered.

a. He who, compelled by want, consented to a wage less than just is not bound to observe the contract, because he did not consent freely, unless the employer admitted the worker asking only from mercy, when otherwise he would not have needed him. - He who either spontaneously or under compulsion consented to labors to be performed on Sundays and feast days is not bound to labor, unless the master has sufficient reason for requiring labor on those days, because the contract is unjust.

b. They sin who, during the time in which by force of the contract they ought to labor, either labor remissly and lazily or wholly indulge idleness. Wherefore if they do not employ even the lowest degree of ordinary diligence, they ought of themselves to remit part of the wage or restore what has already been received. The more suitable mode of making restitution consists in this, that on other days they labor beyond what is due.

2. They are bound to abstain from those things which bring damage to the employer.

They sin if they badly complete works committed to them; if they do not guard the goods of the master or instruments of the art, or lose them.

3. They are bound to abstain from force and seditions, but especially from unjust cessation from work by agreement.

Concerning strikes, or cessation from work by agreement (Strikes),¹ two things must be declared: a. whether it is just; b. whether it is licit.

¹ Lehmkuhl, Arbeitsvertrag und Strike^3 (Freiburg: Herder, 1904), in Die soziale Frage, 2. Heft; A. Vermeersch, l. c., n. 470 ss.

306. On the justice of cessation. A twofold condition is required so that cessation from work can be called just: a. that the hiring contract not be violated; b. that unjust conditions not be demanded.

1. If the hiring contract is unjust, workers do not injure justice if, before the time of the contract has ended, they cease from work by agreement until they have obtained just conditions of contract.

A hiring contract can be unjust either because workers do not receive a just wage, or because without necessity they are forced to labor even on feast days and Sundays, or because dangers to life or health are not sufficiently forestalled, etc.

2. If the hiring contract is just, they manifestly injure justice when they cease from labors before the time of hiring has ended. But they do not act against justice if, when the time of hiring has ended, they cease from work until they obtain better conditions, provided they demand only just conditions, such as a greater wage, not above the highest, a time of labor not excessive, etc.

a. The just conditions which workers demand are sometimes of such a kind that they cannot be denied by employers without injustice, as a just wage and a time of labor not excessive; but sometimes the conditions, although they are just, can be denied without injustice, as the highest wage, daily labor of eight hours, etc.

b. If indeed they receive the lowest just wage but demand a greater one, those ceasing from work ought to grant other workers the liberty of laboring for the lowest wage, if they wish. But if they do not receive the lowest just wage, they do not act unjustly if they morally compel others to cessation, provided this is done by licit means, for example, by excluding them from societies freely entered for the good of workers.¹

3. Workers ceasing from labors who by persuasions induce other workers also to cease from work, supposing a just cessation, do not injure justice. But those who do this by force, threats, fraud, or lies injure justice in two ways: both toward the workers, who are unjustly impeded from the wage to be earned by them, and toward the employers, who are unjustly impeded from the profit to be procured by them.

Hence workers who by persuasions induce others to cease from work, where the cessation is unjust, are bound as counselors together with the others to restitution toward the injured masters; but toward the workers they are bound to nothing, because no injury is done to one willing. But those who by unjust means induce others to cease are themselves bound to repair the damage inflicted both upon masters and upon other workers.

Note. Frequently workers enter associations among themselves, for helping the sick, their widows, etc., into which they are received only on this condition, that they cease from work as often as cessation is decreed by the moderators. Now it is licit to join associations of this sort only when it is established that the moderators will not decree a cessation which is contrary to justice.

¹ Cf. Lehmkuhl, Theolog. mor., I, n. 1119.

307. On the liceity of cessation. A twofold condition is required for the liceity of cessation: a. that the end be honest; b. that there be a proportionately grave cause.

1. It cannot be denied that workers not rarely rightly and deservedly complain about a wage less than just, about labor either too heavy or too long, about conditions of labor unworthy of a Christian man, indeed of a rational man. To meet these evils and to obtain better conditions of labor, which employers refuse to grant, workers sometimes licitly use the means of a just cessation from work.

There are, moreover, other and diverse ends for which cessations from work are sometimes instituted, for example, to disturb social order, to explore the force and number of workers associated by a common league, to extort unjust conditions of labor, etc. It is clear that the end stated above is the only one from which strikes can become licit.

2. Cessation from work brings great damages both to the workers themselves and to employers, to common prosperity, and finally to public tranquility. To avoid these evils, workers from the precept of charity must first try other means by which their just desires may be fulfilled; and only where another way of obtaining the intended just end, truly grave, is not available, is it licit for them to use a means in itself just, from which so many and such great evils follow.