Labor Disputes

Labor Disputes between Employers and Employees.—(a) In themselves these disputes are indifferent, as they are a species of industrial war (see 1380 sqq.) or of industrial self-defense (1826 sqq.). If the end, the means and the circumstances are not against right reason, the disputes are lawful or even laudable.

(b) In the concrete, the strike is labor’s chief means for enforcing demands. Since organized labor seeks to equalize the bargaining power between employer and employee, the way to counteract refusal to pay fairly is by a concerted refusal to work, i.e., a strike. A strike may be defined as an organized cessation from work by a group of workers to obtain advantages from an employer. Since an organized strike is a kind of war, moral theologians apply the principles of a just war to determine concretely the morality of a strike.

1. There must be a just reason for the strike. Too little pay, too long hours, brutal treatment, unsafe or unsanitary conditions constitute genuine grievances for what may be called a defensive strike, which presupposes injustice in the part of the employer. On the other hand an ameliorative strike does not presuppose an employer’s injustice, but consists essentially in the worker’s attempt to better conditions, e.g., a better salary, shorter working hours, etc. Such a strike seems to be unlawful if it violates a just work contract in effect at the time of the strike. If no such contract has been made, the ameliorative strike can be lawful, granting a proportionately grave cause; but it is never given unqualified approval owing to the fact that such a strike involves many and grave losses both material and moral to the workers, employer, and community. (See Merkelbach, Summa Theologiae Moralis II, n.556.)

2. The strike must be the last means. Owing to the fact that a strike is a kind of warfare, all other peaceful means should be tried, e.g., arbitration, governmental inquiry boards, injunctions, fact-finding boards etc. The moral principle involved is; if an evil is avoidable but not avoided, it cannot be considered as merely incidental to a good end.

3. The strike would be called by proper authority. The decision to strike should be made by the men themselves freely and Without intimidation. Organized labor must have the backing of a responsible union in its strike, for this is the channel of bargaining or arbitration that the employer must use, and it should be used by the workers also. Accordingly, “wildcat” strikes are unlawful unless the unions have ceased to represent the men and have been repudiated by them.

4. The benefits expected from the strike must compensate for the evils inseparable from it. In this matter not only the worker’s personal gains are to be considered, but also the welfare of others, namely the employers and the public. Thus, in a long-drawn-out strike the economic advantage gained in a small salary increase for the worker can never be proportionate to the financial losses inflicted on the workers themselves in loss of income, on the employers, and particularly on a community which suffers the loss of purchasing power of a number of its members. Many strikes in which the products or services of the workers are necessary to the public (transportation, food distribution, etc.) seem to be more a strike against the community than against an employer; and the harm inflicted on the innocent public is not incidental as it must be in order to be justified. Only extraordinarily grave reasons can justify such strikes.

5. The means employed must be just. The common means are work stoppage, persuasion of other workers to keep the work stopped until the demands are met, and picketing in a peaceful manner. Sabotage and violence against an employer’s person or property constitute unjust means. “Scabs,” or professional strike-breakers, may be prevented from depriving the workers of their jobs to which the workers keep their rights; but violence in defense of this right seems illicit, unless violence is begun by the strike-breakers and the workers are forced to defend themselves.

(c) Kinds of Strike. Thus far the analysis has been concerned with a direct strike. Other kinds of strike demand special consideration.

1. Slow-down strike. Since it does not involve cessation from work, but simply a reduction in production or services while the worker is receiving full pay under contract, the strike seems to be immoral. The striker is not giving the work paid for.

2. Sit-down strikes. Some authors justify these strikes by analogy with an act of self-defense in which the person attacked seizes the weapon from the attacker. The analogy seems defective since the place of work is hardly a weapon. This strike seems to be immoral since it involves an unjust invasion of property rights by way of excluding an owner from the use of his property.

3. Sympathy strikes. There is a great diversity of opinion in this kind of strike. A moderate view distinguishes between strikes of several groups against the same employer and one or several groups against different and unassociated employers. The first kind seems justified, for it is directed against the same unjust employer, and the workers are cooperators to defend the rights of one group against him. In the second case of striking against different employers, the “sympathizers” are striking against a just employer and are violating their work contract which binds in commutative justice. Hence this type of strike seems to be essentially unjust.

(d) The lockout is the employer’s strike. Unwilling to grant the worker’s demand, the employer shuts down his plant, thus terminating employment of both strikers and non-strikers. The same conditions and restrictions that apply to the strike are applicable to lockouts. That the lockout itself is not unjust, but at least morally indifferent, appears to be evident in this, that as workers are not bound to submit to injustice, neither is the employer. He cannot be expected to pay wages when essential employers have quit or stalled production.

(e) A boycott is a mass refusal to patronize a certain business with the effort to persuade others to join in the refusal. Historically it has been used by labor to gain support from the public against an employer or by elements of the public itself to protest some evil practice of a business establishment, e.g., Legion of Decency boycotts of indecent pictures, NODL boycotts of literature, etc. In itself, a boycott is not immoral, since no one is obliged to trade in one place in preference to another and may refuse to trade with persons who are unjust or otherwise immoral. There seems to be no reason also to prevent a person from lawfully persuading others to follow his cause. The principles of a just strike are applicable to the justification of boycotts, and the conditions of a sympathy strike are to be applied to secondary boycotts, i.e., against other firms doing business with a boycotted firm. These other firms are not themselves unjust and should not be made to suffer for the injustice of another. Hence, a very grave cause, co-operation in injustice, for example would be necessary to bring pressure against them.

e) To stop work without regard to the stipulations of a written or oral contract constitutes a breach of contract and entails the duty of restitution. Whether such a breach of contract should be subject to criminal proceedings, is a question which in our time is political rather than judicial.

A man does not as a rule break a contract without justifying his action, at least before his own conscience. That a workingman has the right to withdraw from a wage contract one-sidedly for good reasons, such as the non-compliance of the employer with the stipulations agreed upon, or an essential change in the relation between labor and wage, cannot be denied. Though strikes are mostly based on false and short-sighted calculations, not every such act of combined self-help is per se immoral, but each case must be decided on its own merits, with due regard to the interests of the weaker party when there is room for doubt.

A strike, as our readers know, is the quitting of work by a body of laborers for the purpose of forcing their employer or employers to comply with some demand or condition, as for increase or against reduction of wages. As carried on at the present time, strikes are usually accompanied by active interference with the business of the employers, by the use of the boycott, intimidation of new employees (scabs), etc.¹⁵

¹⁵ W. McDonald, "The Ethical Aspect of Boycotting," Irish Theol. Quarterly, Vol. I (1906), No. 3; P. Marshall, Ibid., Vol. I, No. 4; T. Slater, S.J., Ibid., Vol. II (1907), No. 6.

Theoretically, a strike need not necessarily be condemned as illicit, though on account of the numerous evils by which it is usually accompanied it can scarcely ever be advisable in praxi. It is for this reason that Leo XIII so strongly insisted on the duty of the State to strive for the abolition of strikes.

"When work-people have recourse to a strike," he says, "it is frequently because the hours of labor are too long, or the work is too hard, or because they consider their wages insufficient. The grave inconvenience of this not uncommon occurrence should be obviated by public remedial measures; for such paralyzing of labor not only affects the masters and their work-people alike, but is extremely injurious to trade and to the general interests of the public; moreover, on such occasions violence and disorder are generally not far distant, and thus it frequently happens that the public peace is imperilled. The laws should forestall and prevent such troubles from arising; they should lend their influence and authority to the removal in good time of the causes which lead to conflicts between employers and employed."¹⁶

¹⁶ Rerum novarum (The Pope and the People, p. 203).

Strikes, therefore, especially in their more threatening forms, should be prevented as much as possible for the sake of the common weal.

This is not tantamount to saying that they are never justified under any conditions. If the public authorities will not or cannot assure just treatment to the workingmen, and the latter abstain from violence, they must not be condemned for laying down work. The evils that often accompany strikes are not essential to the latter, and a strike quite often is a true act of legitimate self-defense. In such a case, the strike is justifiable, unless higher considerations demand a renunciation of just rights.

When the conditions of labor are not in accord with justice, workingmen may, without awaiting the expiration of their contract, threaten to quit work, and if the employer refuses to comply with their demands, lay down their tools. But if the employer is not guilty of injustice, the workers are obliged to live up to the terms of their contract until it expires. They may ask for more favorable conditions, but are not allowed to use force to obtain them.

With due regard to the contractual term, or after its expiration, says Fr. Lehmkuhl, the workingmen may, individually or by common action, go much farther. They have the right to value their labor more highly, and even if they went to imprudent and unfair limits in so doing, one would not be allowed to accuse them of injustice in the strict sense. The value of labor need not be measured by the current exchange value of its product, but the laborer is within his rights if he holds that the exchange value of the product might just as well be measured by the increased value of labor. We do not hesitate to allow the working people a larger scope in this respect for the increase of wages, than we would allow the employers for lowering the same. This lies in the nature of a free contract. The contracting parties may go to the limit of a just wage, the laboringmen in their demands, the employers in their offers. The upper limit, in the very nature of things, is naturally more indefinite than the lower, though in individual instances the determination of the lower limit, too, is not easy. What may be generally regarded as an unjustly low wage may be shorn of its injustice by circumstances. For this reason it will, as a rule, be difficult to permit laboringmen to quit work at once without regard to their contract because of unfair conditions.

In discussing just and unjust conditions of labor we have employed the amount of the wage as an example; not as if it were the only thing that can be enforced through strikes, but because it is the first and most important. The others are either subordinate to, or intimately connected with, wages; in fact, for the most part they are merely another form of wage regulation. Working hours, night work, limitation of child and female labor, all these questions are closely related to the wage problem; so too, the protection of good morals and compliance with religious duties on the part of the workingmen.¹⁷

¹⁷ Lehmkuhl, Arbeitsvertrag und Streik, 4th ed., pp. 59 sq.

556. A strike (greve; werkstaking, strijken) is the common withdrawal of many workers by agreement for obtaining certain advantages from masters. Hence it is, as it were, an economic war; concerning its liceity or justice there can be a special difficulty.

When a contract of labor has been entered into, it is explicitly or implicitly defined how long it ought to last; and workers or owners act unjustly who without a grave reason withdraw from a legitimate agreement, and therefore they are held to compensate the damage inflicted from this.²¹ But a) if the contract from the beginning was unjust, or afterward became unjust, as if it was entered into under compulsion, or then unjustly changed by the owner, or brings an imminent danger of temporal or spiritual damage, those who withdraw from the contract because of the harm which they suffer do not commit injustice: for this is legitimate defense.²² Likewise b) when the time has elapsed, or warning has been given, workers can denounce the contract without injury toward the owner even without any reason: for they can justly let their work to others or even rest from work; although in doing so they can sin against charity, for example, toward their own, on account of which sometimes a lesser evil will have to be undergone to avoid a greater one. c) This also has force concerning owners toward workers, although they can sin against charity if they do this without sufficient reason, for example, because the workers are associated; on the contrary, it would be otherwise if it were done because the workers are a danger to others under the respect of religion or morality.

²¹ Cf. Belgian law of 10 March 1900, a. 16 and following.

²² Ibid., a. 20 and following.

But in the present matter it is asked whether workers can cease from work in bands by agreement, for this end indeed, that they may obtain or extort better conditions from masters.²³

²³ On this argument, Kiselstein, La legitimite de la greve, in Rev. Eccl. de Liege, 1923, deserves to be read.

Moreover, a twofold strike is distinguished. One, defensive, is instituted by workers who are unjustly oppressed by masters, for example, when a truly insufficient wage is paid or the health or morality of workers is not sufficiently consulted; the other, ameliorative, is for obtaining a greater wage or shorter and easier labor, although the wage accepted up to now is not altogether insufficient nor the labor excessive. The first is not of itself illicit, provided that another means is not at hand for defending oneself licitly against the injustices of the owner: for it is licit to defend oneself with the moderation of blameless defense. The other has been held by some to be illicit, as seditious; nevertheless it is rather commonly judged that sometimes it can be licit, provided a proportionately grave cause is present and unjust means are not employed. But in practice, considering concrete circumstances, a strike, even a defensive one, is not easily licit, because of the many and grave damages, both material and moral, which it is accustomed to imply, both for workers and for owners and for the community itself.

These evils are described by Tanquerey:²⁴ during the whole time of the strike "a) workers receive no wage, but b) spend money accumulated by long thrift for the sustenance of themselves and their family; c) owners, however, not only make no profit, but d) often incur burdensome expenses for protecting and repairing their buildings and instruments of labor, e) lose the opportunity of selling their wares not only for the present, but f) often also for the future time, since not a few buyers are accustomed to have recourse to other manufacturers, and often afterward retain this custom. Moreover, g) railways and also certain other workshops, which depend upon those from whom work has ceased, suffer not slight damages from this; h) sometimes the industry and commerce of the whole province are involved in entangled difficulties, and the number of the poor in the whole region is greatly increased; i) Nor must there be passed over in silence the evils of the moral order which arise from this: namely, hatreds which divide citizens, the corruption of morals which naturally flows from long idleness, blasphemies against religion, violent and unjust acts by which persons or things are attacked, and other things of this sort."

²⁴ Th. M. De Virtute Iustitiae, n. 845.

Deservedly, therefore, Leo XIII says: "That kind of cessation affects with damage not only the masters and the workers themselves (and their family), but harms commerce and the utilities of the republic; and since it is usually not far from force and disturbances, it very often brings public tranquillity into danger." But since it is not licit to posit the cause of evil effects, unless the conditions are given, among which especially is this one, that a compensating good arise from it, hence the following principles concerning a strike must be attended to.

I. Common cessation from work by agreement is not licit unless 1. for a legitimate end to be obtained with founded hope, 2. with a just cause existing and proportionately grave, 3. while another way is lacking, 4. and unjust means are not employed.

There is required 1. a legitimate end to be obtained with founded hope: if the legitimate end is lacking, because the conditions demanded are unjust, the strike is intrinsically evil; if founded hope is lacking, it is gravely rash because of the harmful consequences to which it exposes one without likely compensation;

2. a just cause proportionately grave: for since many evils are apt to arise from a strike, there is required a reason of great moment, which ought to be the graver in proportion as greater evils can also be feared. Ordinarily a political cause does not suffice, for example, obtaining the right of suffrage, nor a fortiori obtaining the exclusion of non-associated workers, because liberty of laboring is given to all;

3. absence of another milder or better way: persuasion, peaceful agreement, intercession of the government, appeal to arbiters, etc.; for otherwise the strike would not be necessary;

4. abstinence from unjust means, because evils cannot be done so that goods may come about.

Hence in practice one must not cease from work by agreement except after mature deliberation, when other means and peaceful efforts have been exhausted, and when all advantages and disadvantages have been carefully weighed: for if the aforesaid conditions, and therefore the liceity of the matter, are not established, one should rather abstain from it. But when the conditions are verified, the strike is licit, because it is an act indifferent of itself, from which, in the case, a twofold effect will follow, so that the intended good effect is foreseen as about to surpass the evil. But if, in these circumstances, such a right were denied to workers, they could scarcely protect their rights in another way; on the contrary, experience has proved that a strike begun with mature counsel is an efficacious means.

II. Especially in a strike, one must abstain from all unjust means, whether for inflicting damage upon masters, or for deterring others from laboring. For to use unjust means, whether violent or fraudulent, is illicit, even for pursuing a good end.

Hence they act unjustly a) who by an anticipated cessation violate the contract without a just reason, or inflict damage upon the things of the owners, for example, by burning or invading houses or wares, or harm the owners themselves, even if they are guilty: for it is not licit by private authority to take vengeance;

b) likewise those who by force or by another unjust means compel other workers to cease from work, by beating, persecuting, calumniating, and a fortiori by striking or wounding; but whether the same must be said of those who, because of manifest injustice redounding to the common damage of workers, compel others by merely moral means not to labor, for example, by expelling them from the association without damage, can perhaps be disputed;

c) likewise those who by counsel or common conspiracy cooperate in these injustices; but not those who are compelled against their will not to labor.

III. A strike in public services, for example, railways, is very rarely licit. For it is often prohibited by the government in the stipulations themselves of the contract; and the advantages to be hoped for very rarely compensate the damages which directly harm the public good.

Hence it does not seem to be licit unless it is truly defensive; nor always, but only for repelling an intolerable injustice, for otherwise, since the public good must prevail over private good, the workers must renounce this latter.

557. Observation. The same principles have force from the opposite side concerning the dismissal of workers made by agreement (lock-out; uitsluiting). For if workers can declare "economic war" against owners, these, in similar conditions, can wage war against workers. But a truly grave cause is required, such as grave fault of the workers; because otherwise culpable cruelty would be committed, since workers thus dismissed would now be admitted nowhere in such a region for laboring, and would be compelled either to emigrate, or to embrace another vocation, or to beg.²⁵

²⁵ Prummer, Th. M. II, n. 309.