What CST says about employee participation and why

Rerum novarum does not explicitly mention employee participation. Its emphasis on the dignity of the worker, however, could be said to imply that this is a theme that would be developed later. Some Catholics argued that employee participation was a natural right that should be enshrined in law. Pius XI rejected this view of employee participation as an entitlement in Quadragesimo anno but stressed the desirability of a partnership approach to relations within the firm . This idea was developed in various ways in Mater et magistra which spoke of employee participation in decision-making both within the firm and at the level of the economy in general. Since employees were affected by policies developed at levels higher than the firm, they ought also to be allowed to participate in developing those policies. Mater et magistra also called for employees to be allowed to share in the profits of the businesses that they work for. CST’s stance on employee participation was summed up in this passage of Gaudium et spes:

“In economic enterprises it is persons who are joined together, that is, free and independent human beings created lo the image of God. Therefore, with attention to the functions of each-owners or employers, management or labor-and without doing harm to the necessary unity of management, the active sharing of all in the administration and profits of these enterprises in ways to be properly determined is to be promoted.(7) Since more often, however, decisions concerning economic and social conditions, on which the future lot of the workers and of their children depends, are made not within the business itself but by institutions on a higher level, the workers themselves should have a share also in determining these conditions-in person or through freely elected delegates.”

Laborem exercens is the most recent encyclical to deal at length with the employee rights. It emphasizes that work has both objective and subjective dimensions intrinsically related to each other as different elements to be grasped in an overall understanding of human work. The objective dimension refers to the external effect produced by work; the firm’s products or services can be seen as belonging to this objective dimension. Human activity cannot be thought of as work unless it has this objective aspect, unless some change is made and something is produced. Without this, the activity would have to be classed as play, or a quest for speculative knowledge or an aesthetic experience.

The subjective dimension of work, however, is more important than the objective dimension when one when looks at things from an ethical perspective. The subjective dimension of work refers specifically to its ability to contribute to developing the humanity of the worker. Through work, the employee develops his personality in various ways. The question, then, is whether workplace arrangements are so structured as to respect the priority to be given the subjective dimension of work. Do they allow for the exercise of initiative? Can the employee reasonably believe that he is in some sense working for himself? Is the worker a part-owner of his workplace? Does his work allow him opportunities to make a gift of his very self to his others. This gift would be made, most obviously, to those who depend on his salary, to customers or clients and to fellow employees. In principle, this self-giving knows no limits.

Centesimus annus did not deal directly with employee rights, nor with the question of employee participation. The need to give employees some stake in their work, to make an appeal to a legitimate form of self-interest is, however, reinforced by this extract from Centesimus Annus:

“Man tends towards good, but he is also capable of evil. He can transcend his immediate interest and still remain bound to it. The social order will be all the more stable the more it takes this fact into account and does not place in opposition personal interest and the interests of society as a whole, but rather seeks ways to bring them into fruitful harmony. In fact, where self-interest is violently suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control which dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity.”

The idea of an alignment between self-interest and the well-being of one’s communities is obviously relevant to the theme of employee participation.

CST claims no competence when it comes to devising technical solutions for the implementation of employee participation in its various forms. There is obviously a range of acceptable solutions and each firm and each economy will have to work out approaches that suit it best. Laborem exercens points the way. The goal to be achieved is that:

“on the basis of his work each person is fully entitled to consider himself a part-owner of the great workbench at which he is working with every one else.”

The passage continues:

“A way towards that goal could be found by associating labour with the ownership of capital, as far as possible, and by producing a wide range of intermediate bodies with economic, social and cultural purposes; they would be bodies enjoying real autonomy with regard to the public powers, pursuing their specific aims in honest collaboration with each other and in subordination to the demands of the common good”.

It is for the direct employer (the firm) and the indirect employer (anyone with a say in the terms of employment such as the state) to reach workable and just solutions.

The most formidable barriers to designing workplaces that respect the subjective dimension of work are to be found in the realm of ideas. Laborem exercens suggests that the most significant problem lies in the economistic mindset that sees capital and labour as two opposing, and purely material, forces. There is a need for a philosophical shift that allows work, once again, to be seen in its human context.

To summarise, Rerum novarum was inspired by concern over the material poverty of the working classes in the industrialized nations at the end of the nineteenth century. It was also a response to an economic system and a way of looking at things that saw work as a mere commodity so that no respect was accorded to the subjective dimension of work. Over the past fifty years, CST has emphasized the importance of allowing employees to exercise their initiative and to play a part in the governance of the firm and of the economy. It has called for workers to be made part-owners and sharers in profit. It has not committed itself to any specific model of employee participation since a range of ethically acceptable approaches exists.