Remaining Minor Question: On Work Stoppages

Liberatore, Principii di economia politica [Principles of Political Economy], pt. 2, chap. 6, art. 4; Lehmkuhl, Arbeitersvertrag und Strike [The Labor Contract and the Strike]; Antoine, Cours d’économie sociale [Course of Social Economy], chap. 15, art. 6; Cauwès, Cours d’économie politique [Course of Political Economy], vol. 3, no. 847 ff.; Rutten, Nos grèves houillères et l’action socialiste [Our Coal Strikes and Socialist Action]; Pottier, De iure et iustitia [On Right and Justice], diss. 3, nos. 169–183.

470. Various notions. 1. BY THE NAME WORK STOPPAGE we designate not, indeed, the refusal of one or a few, but the common withdrawal of many workers by agreement.

2. THE ENDS ALLEGED, if we omit the clandestine designs of those who disturb the populace, sometimes regard the commonwealth, so that the votes of the common people may have more weight in it; but more often they regard the settling of private grievances or the fulfillment of desires.

Grievances: for example, the workers complain that faith has been broken, or that a stipulation is inequitable; or they cannot bear that certain men of their own order be dismissed or treated more harshly. Wishes and desires, however, generally tend to this: that labor be made less burdensome or less prolonged, or be exchanged for a greater wage.

3. The impulses by which minds are either remotely disposed to attempt these measures or anger proximately bursts forth are:

a) True evils and indignities to which workmen are subject;

b) Minds hostile to the fortunate, whether from pride or from evils which have long been tolerated, but with difficulty;

c) The true wishes and hopes of the workers;

d) Very frequently, the blind trust which the common people are accustomed to place in agitators who make a show of popular zeal and know how to govern all things according to their own discretion in assemblies of the people. How often does it happen that most are ignorant of the very reason why they refuse their labor!

4. THE EFFECTS. a) As regards the workers:

Immediately, through the suppression of the wage, work stoppages reduce not a few to want and greatly afflict their households; they induce idleness very dangerous to the virtue and morals of many; they sometimes cause a dearness of the things which the people themselves especially use, or injure the products of other businesses or trades.

Mediately, particular withdrawals, for the most part, come to nothing; some are conducted according to the workers' wishes. Yet universally, it does not seem possible to deny that they have benefited the temporal advantages of the order of workers not a little. For, since masters know that the workers are prepared to have recourse to these extremities, they have become more solicitous in arranging the business lest in any part they give place to a just complaint. But in all of them, whether they have turned out prosperously or otherwise, the anger and hatred by which men of slender means abhor the richer are sharpened, so that they are principal promoters of revolution.

b) As regards the masters:

Immediately, they diminish their profits and are accustomed to bring no slight damage upon their affairs;

Mediately, they move them to resentment and persuade them to form those contrary confederations—I mean the lockout—by which the disturbance of all affairs becomes worse; and they render their minds alien to the workers and to their institutions or associations. Indeed, if an opportunity is given, sometimes with their fortunes they seek another climate in which they may attend more securely to their affairs and businesses.

471. Economic judgment. Without hesitation, work stoppages must be numbered among evils, and indeed immense evils, since they divide citizens by hatred, corrupt religion and morals, induce calamities, and thus never fail to bring detriment to the commonwealth.

Therefore, wisely Leo XIII: “This kind of cessation from work afflicts not only the masters and the workmen themselves with loss, but obstructs commerce and the interests of the commonwealth; and since it is accustomed to be not far removed from violence and disturbances, it very often brings the public tranquility into danger.” Encyclical Rerum novarum.

Nevertheless, it can happen that the workers are able to provide for themselves by this one way.

472. Moral judgment. Because a good act proceeds from an integral cause, work stoppages are not therefore already to be judged licit merely because they are unjust neither from their end nor from their manner. Rather, just as theologians already said concerning wars and the just defense of oneself, it is required in addition that no other way appear to be available for attaining a sufficiently grave good¹ which is worthy of so great a price.

¹ Understand that either proximately or mediately. For it can happen that a cause not so grave in itself becomes of the greatest importance if, in a more general manner, it induces greater respect for the advantages of the workers. Nor must it be neglected what ends of the withdrawal are foreseen and what its duration will be, so that a just calculation of the damages may be made.

Therefore, it seems that the individual headings must now be discussed briefly.

473. From their end the following are illicit:

a) Work stoppages which are undertaken to disturb the state. Those who then, aware of that end, take part in them—unless some rationale of cooperation is excused by a graver evil—“sin by cooperation in the most grave sin of disturbed public tranquility.” Ballerini-Palmieri, Opus morale [Moral Work], vol. 3, tr. 8, pt. 3, chap. 2, no. 536.

And, speaking universally, unless the demand is very equitable and the necessity of this means manifest, political strikes are to be blamed and accused of impiety toward the fatherland. For, on the one hand, they are accustomed to be greater and more grave; on the other, it is greatly opposed to the common good if laws and public institutions are amended by ways that are neither customary nor legitimate, but by the coercion of popular tumult.

b) Those which are undertaken to extort a wage beyond the just maximum, or any inequitable conditions. These are opposed to commutative justice.

Those, however, which are undertaken to obtain a greater but just wage, even perhaps the maximum, are not dishonorable under this heading. Therefore, Rev. Fr. Lehmkuhl, work cited, permits the workers to endeavor to stipulate for this wage: that the greatest part of the gain which is to be distributed from the joined powers of capital and labors should fall to the workers themselves. Likewise, it is lawful for the workers to be unwilling merely to hire out their labors and to demand that, with a certain just rationale of partnership having been introduced, they become in some manner associates and participants in the business. Nevertheless, it will be no less lawful for the masters, within the same limits, to contend for their own advantage.

474. From their manner, the following are contrary to commutative justice:

a) When, before the time established by a free agreement, the workers interrupt the labors promised, unless they do this to free themselves from unjust vexation as regards the price or the conditions of labor. For the rules concerning just defense must be transferred to this.

b) When unjust coercion of others is exercised. It is worth the labor to define this more precisely.

α) The coercion is unjust by which, through violence, fraud, threats, or strictly harmful means—which injure someone's person or goods—the other workers are prohibited from labor. For they have a right to exercise and hire out their powers at the price and in the manner which pleases them.

Nor can this coercion in any way be excused by some right of defense against those who, by assenting to harsh conditions, might be said to snatch from the others the sword by which alone they can protect themselves. For there is no right of defense unless there is an unjust aggressor whose present attack cannot otherwise be turned aside than by repelling force with force. But in the present case, those who work for an inequitable wage perhaps fail somewhat in charity; nevertheless, they are guilty of no injury, even in appearance. Much less can any present invasion of person or thing be imagined. Nor, because the way of obtaining what is equitable is thus indirectly closed to others, can these measures therefore become just, since that maxim is perpetual: one who uses his own right is injurious to no one.

Moreover, if the rationale proposed were true, merchants who sell their wares at too low a price would no less have to be condemned for injury, so that the other merchants, to whom this is unwelcome and hateful, could likewise claim the right of defense for exercising vengeance. Yet the common good does not permit there to be such frequent occasions of private vengeance. And in this present case nature could sanction such a thing all the less, the more even work stoppages rashly undertaken are regarded by the deceived populace as a most equitable vindication of a certain violated right. Therefore, unless we hold most firmly that others have a right to persevere in doing their work, we shall expose each of the best workers, defenseless, to the caprice of a seditious faction or of agitators.

What of the fact that this opinion is almost repugnant to the decrees of the Holy See, which, in the most specious cases, denied the exception of defense to one who was compelled to accept a duel lest he lose his fortune or honor?² In a case nearer and more closely related to ours, in which, according to many, there was question of an inequitable oppression of tenants, the Congregation of the Holy Office condemned the measures, although not openly injurious, by which the Irish tenants wished to compel others, for the protection of their own rights, not to pay rents or lease lands. For the doubt was proposed: “Whether it is lawful, in controversies between lessors and lessees of farms or estates in Ireland, to use the means commonly called the Plan of Campaign and the Boycotting?” After the matter had been considered long and maturely by the Most Eminent Fathers, the response was given by unanimous vote: “Negative.” In the rationales appended, however, C. Monaco writes these words which pertain especially to our matter: “Finally, it is altogether alien to natural justice and Christian charity that, by a certain new persecution and interdiction, severity be exercised either against those who, content with those rents which they had agreed upon with the owners of the estates, are prepared rather to pay them; or against those who, using their right, lease vacant lands.” (From the letter of C. Monaco, April 20, 1888, by which the response of the Holy Office was sent to the Bishops of Ireland.)

² Cf. the propositions condemned by Benedict XIV, Bull Detestabilem, 1752.

Therefore, we can in no way assent to Rev. Dr. Pottier, who, diss. 3, no. 180, appears to call this matter into controversy. Moreover, this passage of his work also gave little satisfaction to those who reviewed it, for example in Civiltà Cattolica [Catholic Civilization] and Science Catholique [Catholic Science], 1900.

β) Nor is such coercion licit or free from injury by which someone is virtually forbidden water and fire, with all civil communication being denied. For the Irish used this kind of coercion in their boycotting and plan of campaign. For there seems to be a right of each person to enjoy that civil intercourse by which he can lead a human life.

c) But, these means having been excluded, it is lawful, in a just and grave cause, to employ a certain moral coercion by which those who are unwilling to protect the common interests are merely excluded from some undue good. To this pertains a fine established according to the laws of the association, expulsion from the association, denial of assistance in a necessity that is not extreme, and so forth.

N.B. Deservedly, Rev. Dr. Pottier, no. 176, binds the workers in solidum to repair the damages of an unjust work stoppage. Often, however, when there is question of restitution to be made to the master himself, once peace has been established, a certain remission of the debt can be presumed—at least of that by which the common people are bound. I would not say the same concerning the agitators.

475. From the effects of hatreds and ruins, work stoppages, even if just, are gravely opposed to charity and piety toward the fatherland:

a) When the good for which hope is given is not of such great importance;

b) When the suitability of such a means must deservedly be doubted;

c) When a gentler and better way of attaining the intended end is available.

476. Concerning the lockout, by which employers enter into contrary confederations not to hire workers except under a definite rule, the same must be said, but in the inverse rationale, as concerning work stoppages.

477. Concerning the legitimate intervention of public power.

1. No one doubts that it pertains to the commonwealth, according to its powers, to cut away the causes of work stoppages or to foster those institutions by which complaints and disagreements may be settled peacefully. Appositely the Holy Pontiff: “In this matter, that is more efficacious and salutary: by the authority of laws to forestall the evil and to prevent it from being able to break forth, its causes having been removed in due time.” Encyclical Rerum novarum.

2. It is no less certain that the crimes and injuries which are accustomed to abound in these tumults are to be restrained by it.

3. From what was said in no. 475, it is also evident that every effort must be made so that the right of laboring be kept safe and sound, and consequently that a sufficiently free choice be permitted to those who are unwilling to take part in the work stoppage.

4. But if disturbances, tumults, and injuries proximately threaten from some withdrawal, the rulers' right to avert these evils, even by prohibiting the work stoppage, is manifest. “Therefore, let the authority of the commonwealth intervene,” the Encyclical Rerum novarum admonishes, “and, a bridle having been put upon the agitators, let it restrain from the morals of the workmen the arts that corrupt them, and from lawful owners the danger of plunder.”

5. But it is asked whether the agreements themselves concerning the refusal of labors can be prohibited by a general statute.

There are those who deny that this is lawful, for it is free to each person either to refuse or to hire out his labors. But this is not at issue at present; rather, it is whether the state, just as it renders many agreements made void, can also prohibit this kind of agreement because it is too dangerous to the common good, and fine those who are supporters of work stoppages.

To state openly what we think in this matter, it would appear to us scarcely equitable to deprive the workers of that defense unless another means is at the same time provided for them by which they can pursue their rights.

But if such a means is at hand, the ruler who judges it opportune to punish by laws these withdrawals, as per se harmful to the common good, will not exceed the measure;³ and without doubt he can condemn those which are undertaken before the controversy is brought for resolution before prudent arbiters. Perhaps these few words from the Encyclical Rerum novarum pertain to the matter: “This customary and grave disadvantage of work stoppages must be remedied publicly.”

³ Thus, after the disturbance of France, for a sufficiently long time it was forbidden for workers to form associations to agree concerning the price and conditions of labor.

But, on the other hand, this too must be left to the judgment of the legislator: whether or not it is expedient to give guilds of workmen the power of declaring work stoppages, so that a certain necessity of obeying these decrees lies upon the members. For if associations of this kind are wisely constituted, especially if they have a Christian character and cannot come under the power of a few turbulent men, then it appears that the commonwealth has less to fear from these decrees. Nevertheless, that the matter is not free from danger is sufficiently manifest of itself.