Of workers and employers (Part 2)

In a write-up two days ago we enumerated the duties of a good worker as pointed out by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum. In this piece we shall focus on the duties of a good employer. One difficulty in resolving the tug-of-war between employees and their employers on the question of wage increase lies in the attitude of both parties. Somehow the mind-set of each is fixed on what one can get and not on what one can give. Like the typical Filipino, each group is hooked to the "me first" conviction, hence, conflicts become the order of the day, not understanding and cooperation. In a Christian setting this tendency ought not to have existed. What should prevail should have been relational values such as those implied in the following duties of a good employer as contained in the Leonine encyclical.

• The employer is bound "not to look upon his people as his bondmen, but to respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character.
• He is "reminded that working for gain is creditable, not shameful to a man since it enables him to earn an honorable livelihood".
• He should not "misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gains, nor to value them solely for their physical powers"
• In dealing with the working man, "religion and the good of his soul must be kept in mind the employer is bound to see that the worker has time for his religious duties".
• He "should see to it that his workers are not exposed to corrupting influences and dangerous occasions".
• That "they are not led away to neglect home and family, or to squander their earnings".
• "He must never tax his people beyond their strength or to employ them in work unsuited to their sex and age".
• "He should give every one what is his due " and to keep in mind that "to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute for the sake of gain is condemned by all laws, human and divine". Quite a mouthful, these, and quite a tall order too. The bottom-line is a Christ-centered employer, one who places people above profit, one who keeps gain at the backseat and God in front. The questions is, are business owners in this country imbued with these qualities? Are they practicing these precepts of the Church? The answer is so obvious as to need articulation.

Take the injunction on treating a worker as a person worthy of respect and dignity, and not as mere instrument for profit. Is not the clam-like refusal of management to give workers their due a refusal to recognize the latter's worth as persons? How many factory hands are forced to work on night shifts but are not getting the compensation mandated by law?

Take the reminder on safeguarding the workers' spiritual state. How many employers are aware of this? Do they have a program to draw their employees closer to God? If they don't have, the least they can do is keep them free on Sundays to give them a chance to go to church.

Perhaps we are out of touch of reality. Perhaps we have forgotten that most businessmen in the country are of Chinese origin whose upbringing is generally securalistic with maybe only a thin veneer of human and spiritual tendencies. Yet the precepts articulated by the Church are not entirely based on Christian ethics but on human laws. How come their validity has by-passed our dear Chinese cousins? The tragedy is that even true bloodied Filipino entrepreneurs have also been as negligent as their Chinese counterparts in observing these yardsticks of the Church. This is ironical because most Filipino employers are baptized Christians, well exposed to the religious tradition of their forebears. Is this a case of split-level personality.

The failure of employers and their employees to hearken to the Church's advice on how to conduct their relationship has given rise to critical social problems which have rocked the stability of many social systems in today's world, ours included. Pope John XXIII in his Mater Et Magistra describes these problems thus: "Enormous riches accumulated in the hands of a few, while large numbers of workmen found themselves in conditions of ever-increasing hardship. Wages were insufficient even to the point of reaching starvation level, and working conditions were often of such nature as to be injurious to health, morality and religious faith. Especially inhuman were the working conditions to which women and children were sometimes subjected"

Sounds familiar?