Behold! The Catholic Church is right and the world is wrong once again.
There's a big surprise.
AP: Chicago council passes 'living wage' act
CHICAGO - The City Council brushed aside warnings from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to approve an ordinance that makes Chicago the biggest city in the nation to require big-box retailers to pay a "living wage."
The ordinance, which passed 35-14 Wednesday after three hours of impassioned debate, requires mega-retailers to pay wages of at least $10 an hour plus $3 in fringe benefits by mid-2010. It would only apply to companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales and stores of at least 90,000 square feet.
As The Catholic Encyclopedia explains, those clowns in Chicago have no idea what the term "living wage" means. Call it "The Wal-Mart Shakedown Act of 2006" if you want, but keep your hands off of Catholic theology.
Today Catholic teaching on compensation is quite precise as regards the just minimum. It may be summarized in these words of Pope Leo XIII in the famous Encyclical "Rerum Novarum" (15 May, 1891), on the condition of the working classes: "there is a dictate of nature more ancient and more imperious than any bargain between man and man, that the remuneration must be sufficient to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions, because
an employer or contractor will give him no better, he is the victim of fraud and injustice." Shortly after the Encyclical appeared, Cardinal Goossens, the Archbishop of Mechlin,
asked the Holy See whether an employer would do wrong who should pay a wage sufficient for the sustenance of the labourer himself but not for that of his family. An unofficial response came through Cardinal Zigliara, saying that such conduct would not be contrary to justice, but that it might sometimes violate charity, or natural righteousness — i. e. reasonable gratitude. As a consequence of the teaching of Leo XIII, there has been widespread discussion, and there exists an immense literature among the Catholics of Europe and America concerning the minimum just wage. The present Catholic position may be summarized somewhat as follows: First, all writers of authority agree that the employer who can reasonably afford it is morally
obliged to give all his employees compensation sufficient for decent individual maintenance, and his adult male employees the equivalent of a decent living not only for themselves but for their families; but not all place the latter part of the obligation under the head of strict justice. Second, some writers base this
doctrine of a minimum just wage upon the principle of just price, according to which compensation should be equivalent to labour, while others declare that it is implicitly contained in the natural right of the labourer to obtain a decent livelihood in the only way that is open to him, namely, through his labour-contract and in the form of wages. The latter is undoubtedly the view of Leo XIII, as is evident from these words of the Encyclical: "It follows that each one has a right to procure what is required in order to live; and the poor can procure it in no
other way than by work and wages."
Authoritative Catholic teaching does not go beyond the ethical minimum, nor declare what is completely just compensation. It admits that full and exact justice will frequently award the
worker more than the minimum equivalent of decent living, but it has made no attempt to define precisely this larger justice with regard to any class of wage-earners. And wisely so; for, owing to the many distinct factors of distribution involved, the matter is exceedingly complicated and difficult. Chief among these factors are from the side of the employer, energy expended, risk undergone, and interest on his capital; from the side of the labourer, needs, productivity, efforts, sacrifices, and skill; and from the side of the consumer, fair prices. In any completely just system of compensation and distribution all these elements would be given weight; hut in what proportion?
Should the man who produces more than his fellow-worker always receive a larger reward, regardless of the effort that he has made? Should skill be more highly compensated than work that is degrading and disagreeable? Even if all men were
agreed as to the different factors of distribution and their relative importance, from the side of capital and labour, there would remain the problem of justice to the consumer. For example, ought a part of the benefits arising from improvements in the productive processes to go to him? or should they all be appropriated by the agents of production? Pope Leo XIII showed is practical wisdom when, instead of dealing in detail with this question, he insisted strongly on the practice of arbitration. When wage-disputes are submitted to fair arbitration, all the criteria and factors of distribution
above enumerated are usually taken into account, and accorded weight in conformity with practical justice. This is not, indeed, the same as ideal justice but in most cases it will approximate that goal as closely as is feasible in a world that is not absolutely perfect.
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