ROME — Pope Francis laid out his economic vision Monday, insisting there are no “free workers” without labor unions.
“There is no labor union without workers and there are no free workers without labor unions,” the pontiff told members of the Italian General Confederation of Workers (CGIL) in a meeting in the Vatican.
The pope went on to denounce “technocracy,” which he called a “perverse system” that has “disappointed expectations of justice in the workplace.”
In his address, the pope praised gainful employment as that which “builds up society” as well as the human person himself.
Work “is a primary experience of citizenship, in which a community of destiny takes shape, the fruit of the commitment and talents of each one,” he asserted. “This community is much more than the sum of the different professions, because everyone recognizes himself in the relationship with others and for others.”
Democracy itself, he declared, is a fabric woven with “creative industriousness in factories, workshops, farms, commercial enterprises, crafts, construction sites, public administrations, schools, offices, and so on.”
Pope Francis jockingly takes the pacifier from a child in the Paul VI Hall at The Vatican at the end of his weekly general audience, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. He called Wednesday for a “humble” Christmas this year, with reduced spending on gifts and for the savings to be donated instead to help the “suffering people of Ukraine.” (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
It is one of the tasks of labor unions “to educate in the meaning of work, promoting fraternity among workers,” he contended, and this formative concern cannot be missing because it is “the salt of a healthy economy, capable of making the world better.”
As he has often done, the pope condemned what he calls the “throwaway culture” that has “invaded the world of work,” often in the form of disregard for human dignity.
Workplace safety suffers when a desire for profit exceeds care for human beings, he said.
“The idolatry of money tends to trample on everything and everyone and does not defend differences,” he said. “It is about training to care about the lives of employees and educating oneself to take safety regulations seriously.”
In his address, Francis also condemned the exploitation of workers, as if they were “performance machines.”
Examples of this exploitation include “the slavery of laborers in agriculture or on construction sites and in other workplaces, subjection to grueling shifts, unfair contracts, contempt for motherhood, and the conflict between work and family.”
There are too many people who, despite having a job, cannot support their families and give hope for the future, the pope declared, and it is precisely the job of labor unions “to be the voice of the voiceless.”