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CHURCH'S SOCIAL TEACHING AND WAGES

Does an employee have a right to a certain level of wage?  How do we determine whether a wage is fair or not?

These questions have plenty of relevance to Zambia these days, with all the discussions about “wage freezes,” PAYE tax bands, causal labour hiring practices, etc.  We have a very small number in formal employment – less than 500,000 – and issues around their wages are politically very controversial and ethically very important.

Teachings about Wages

For many years, the church’s social teaching (CST) has consistently argued that wages are a test of the justice in a society.  Indeed, the first great CST document, Leo XIII’s On the Condition of Labour (1891), highlighted the central issue of compensation to be made to workers.  At a time when there was considerable oppression of workers – especially women and children – in the industrialised countries in Europe, the church argued strongly for respect for the dignity of the worker and for meetings the worker’s needs.

The scripture has very strong things to say about those who defraud workers from what is due to them.  For example, the Letter of James says:  “Behold, the wages of the labourers…which have been kept back by you unjustly, cry out, and their cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts!”  (James 5: 4).

But how do we determine the justice of the amount of wages that should be paid to a worker?  Obviously it would be unjust for workers to demand excessively high wages that would bankrupt a business, causing its collapse with even greater problems coming to the workers.  But it would also be highly unjust for an employer to make big profits and pay workers very scarce wages.

The Second Vatican Council stated clearly:  “Remuneration for work should guarantee people the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for themselves and for their families, on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each worker, the state of the business, and the common good” (Church in the Modern World, #67; 1965).

Three Descriptions of Wages

In the CST tradition, there have been three descriptions given to the compensation that should be paid to workers:

Just wage:  this is the amount of money that a worker deserves because of the contract that she or he has signed.  We call it quid pro quo – I do something for you and you must reimburse me what you promised.  Cheating a worker, cutting back on a contract already entered into, forcing a worker to sign a contract that clearly is not fair – all of these activities would be violations of the principle of paying a just wage.

Living wage:  this is the amount of money that should be paid so that the worker can meet the ordinary needs the she or he has for a decent livelihood.  Here in Zambia, the well-known “Basic Needs Basket” that the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection produces each month highlights the demands for a living wage for a family of six in Lusaka.  At the start of 2004, the “Basic Needs Basket” topped K1,065,900 (or over US$220) – and this didn’t include several items like health and education costs, transport, etc.  But most teachers and civil servants were taking home less than one-half of that pay!

Family wage: this is the amount of money that a worker needs to provide for her or his family – and this will, of course, vary depending on the size of the family.  Go back to the discussion of the “Basic Needs Basket” and recall that this amount is for a family of six.  Should a secretary in the civil service be paid less if she has only a few dependents at home?  Should a secondary school teacher with a family of eight be paid much more that his co-teacher who is single?  Obviously, this criterion for determining wages is not an ordinary pattern followed by governments or private companies.  But it raises strong ethical questions.

Decent Wages for Zambian Workers

Just listing these descriptions shows the various and complex elements that need to be considered when we talk about the decent compensations due to workers.  For the church’s social teaching, the primary starting point is the dignity of the worker.  The worker is a human person with basic dignity – she or he is not just a “commodity” introduced into the production process, like machinery, money, fuel, buildings, etc., that can be bargained for in simply economic terms.  Workers deserve proper wages because they are persons.  For CST, the economy is for persons, persons are not for the economy!

When trade unions threaten strikes in order to get better wages, they must be responsible and weigh all the factors that affect the economy of the moment.  But neither government nor private businesses can ignore the just demands for decent wages.

 That is what makes the current debate in Zambia so important on moral grounds.  The CST lessons make clear that government expenditures on non-productive elements (fancy travels, useless offices, etc.) must be trimmed so that money can be available for basic livelihoods of workers.  And foreign investors must not come into Zambia to make big profits on the basis of paying low wages.

Peter Henriot, S.J., is Director of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, Lusaka.
10 March 2004