Catholic Social Teaching
The Dignity
of the
Worker
The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart  USA Province
305 S. Lake Street, PO Box 270  Aurora, IL 60507
Phone: (630) 892-2371  Email: info@misacor-usa.org
There is dignity
in work. Through
work, human
beings participate
in creation and
help realize God's
plan on earth.
Work honors the
gifts and talents that God has
given to each one of us.
Work is ‘for
the worker,
and not the
worker for
work’.
Above: Silk Workers, by Andrew Hitchcock
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
Likewise, the economy must serve
people, and profit cannot be the
ultimate goal or purpose of
economic activity.
The Church teaches that workers have
certain rights, including:
• Just wages which provide them the means to live
a human life and care for their family
• The right to gainful employment
• Freedom from unjust discrimination
• Freedom to join unions and to strike when it is
necessary
Sources: Mater et Magistra, #71 ; Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2433-2435
So what does this mean for us today?
The teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the
dignity of the worker has many implications for us
today. Below are a couple of examples:
• Paying employees a just wage
• Providing employees with a safe
working environment
• Working to end unjust discrimination
• Working to end forced labor
• Changing our buying habits to support
companies that treat workers fairly
We must work to remove practices of unjust
discrimination from the hiring and promotion
process, including discrimination based on gender,
age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious
affiliation.
We must also work to end discrimination against
women who are pregnant.
We must work for the end of slavery, which has
taken the form of human trafficking. Forced labor
of any kind, including within the sex industry,
reduces the person to a means of profit, violating
his/her dignity as a human being made in the
image of God.
To learn more about human trafficking in the USA, please visit: http://misacor-usa.org/ihuman-trafficking.
Photo by Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department
Photo by Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department
We should support
fairly traded goods. We
can do this by changing
what type of coffee we
order & looking for Fair
Trade items in the
grocery store.
We can also research
the companies we buy
products from and give
our support to the ones
which have responsible
business practices and
transparent supply
chains.
We can each do our part to respect the dignity of
work and the worker, through our hiring and
employment practices, through advocacy for better
working conditions, just wages and for an end to
unjust discrimination, and through our daily purchase
decisions.