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The
Church and Ethics in Construction
Policy on the Use of Labor in Construction:
Archdiocese of Chicago
[In 1991, Joseph
Cardinal Bernardin established a task
force of clergy, construction contractors, trade unionists and public
officials,
and charged them to propose a policy for the Diocese on the use of
union
labor in construction. Excerpts of the policy are cited below.]
Certain moral
principles that address the rights and duties
of workers have an evangelical basis. Accordingly, the Church has a
reponsibility
to articulate these principles in its social teaching, implement them
in
its relations with its own direct employees and exercise its influence
in applying these principles to its indirect employees.
The Church teaches
that workers have a right:
-
to a just wage, that is, remuneration
adequate for maintaing
ind securing the future for a family (John Paul II, On Human Work,
p.46);
-
to social benefits including health care,
pension, and security
in the events of accident or old age (HW, p.45);
-
to a work place that is "not harmful to the
worker's physical
health or to their moral integrity" (HW, p.45);
-
to form associations or unions taht defend
and promote their
interests. These organizations are regarded as an "indespensable
element
of social life" (HW, p.46)...
The rights of workers delineated in Roman
Catholic
Social Teaching (and summarized in the premises for this statement)
provide
the basis for this policy. To the extent that unions in the Chicago
area
seek to guarantee these principles by providing for things such as a
just
wage, medical insurance, disability insurance, workers' compensation,
unemployment
insurance and safe working conditions, the Archdiocese supports them...
For projects over $300,000, all contracts are to be union contracts.
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