Pope urges Trade Unions to be “prophetic” in defending the rights of "the most fragile workers"

The role of Trade Unions in a modern society, their need to distinguish themselves from politics and for a new social pact for young people. "It's a crippled and short-lived society that forces older people to work too long and forces an entire generation of young people not to work when they should work for themselves and for everyone."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Contemporary capitalism does not understand the value of the labor union because it has forgotten the social nature of the economy," but Trade Unions must be “prophetic” in defending the rights of "the most fragile workers", “foreign workers, those left to last” as well as those excluded from the world of work who "are also excluded from rights and democracy". The role of labor unions in a modern society, their need to distinguish themselves from politics and for a new social pact for young people were summed up by Pope Francis, who this morning received the delegates from the Confederation of Italian Workers' Unions (CISL) before the general audience at the end of their XVIII National Congress on the subject: "For the person, for work".

"A very good motto," commented the Pope. "The Person and work - he added - are two words that can and should be together. Because if we think and speak of work without the person, work ends up becoming something inhuman, forgetting the person and losing its meaning. But if we think of a person without a job, we are also speaking of something partial, incomplete, because the person realizes his or herself when he or she becomes a worker.  Because the individual becomes a person when he opens to others, to social life, when he flourishes in the workplace. Work is the most common form of cooperation that humanity has generated in its history. Every day, millions of people cooperate simply by working: educating our children, operating mechanical appliances, sorting out practical matters in an office ... Work is a form of civil love: it is not a romantic love or intentional love, but it is a true, authentic love, that makes us live and carries the world forward.

Of course, the person is not just work, because we do not always work, and we do not always have to work. Children do not work, and should not have to work. We do not work when we are sick, we do not work when we are old, "but when we must recognize a “just pension ". "Just because neither too poor nor too rich: 'Golden pensions' are no less an offense to serious work than too poor pensions, because they render the inequalities of a working lifetime perennial. Or when a worker becomes ill and is discarded by the workforce in the name of efficiency. "

"A stubborn and myopic society," he said, “forces older people to work too long and forces an entire generation of young people not to work when they should, for themselves and for everyone. When young people are outside the world of work, businesses lack energy, enthusiasm, innovation, joy of living, which are precious common goods that improve economic life and public contentment. A new social pact for work is urgently needed, which reduces the working hours of those in the last season of their working life, to create jobs for young people who have the right-duty to work. The gift of labor is the first gift of fathers and mothers to sons and daughters, it is the first property of a society. It is the first dowry to help them take flight in their adult life.

I would like to point out two epochal challenges that today the trade union movement must face and overcome if it wants to continue to play its essential role for the common good.

The first is prophecy, and concerns the very nature of the union, its true vocation. The union is an expression of society’s prophetic profile. The union is born and reborn all the time that, like the biblical prophets, gives voice to those who do not have it, denounces the poor 'sold for a pair of sandals' (cf. Amos 2,6), discovers the powerful trampling the rights of the most fragile workers, defends the cause of the foreigner, of the last, of the 'scraps'. As the great tradition of CISL also demonstrates, the trade union movement has its great season when it is prophecy. But in our advanced capitalist societies the union risks losing this prophetic nature, and becoming too similar to the institutions and powers that it should criticize. The union over time has ended up being too much like politics, or rather political parties, their language, their style. But if this typical and different dimension is lacking, action in companies also loses strength and effectiveness.

Second challenge: innovation. The prophets are sentinels, who keep watch. The union must also watch over the city's workplace, as a watchman who looks and protects those within the workplace, but also looks and protects those outside the city walls. The union does not play its essential role in social innovation if it only watches those who are in it, if it only protects the rights of those who are already working or are retired. This is to be done, but it is half your job. Your vocation is also to protect those who do not yet have rights, who are excluded from work and who are also excluded from rights and democracy.

The capitalism of our time does not understand the value of the union, because it has forgotten the social nature of the economy, enterprise, life, ties and patents. But perhaps our society does not understand the union because it does not see it fight enough in the 'not yet' rights places: in the existential suburbs, among the discarded laborers, among the immigrants, the poor who are under the city walls; Or simply it does not understand why corruption has sometimes entered the heart of some trade unionists. Do not let this be blocked. "

"There is no good company without a good trade union, and there is no good trade union that does not re-emerge every day in the peripheries, which does not turn the stolen stones of the economy into corner stones. Syndicate is a beautiful word that comes from the Greek syn-dike, that is, 'justice together'. There is no justice together if it is not with the excluded. "

• Vatican
• Pope Francis
• union
• work
• economy
• social pact
• discarded
• golden pensions