The church as employer: Practice what is preached

Variedly, we refer to money-making institutions as either business, enterprise or firm. As a matter of reference, Wikipedia defines it as “an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services or both to consumers”. That, “businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners”. That, “businesses may also be not-for-profit or state-owned”. 

In our country, all these types are prevalent. In fact, in most business groups, there are institutions in each type that excels. For instance, state-owned Philippine National Oil Corp. and PAGCOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.) top in the energy and entertainment sectors, respectively. The group of companies (mostly, publicly listed) of San Miguel Corporation, Metro Pacific, and JG Summit are business leaders as well in their respective sectors. Not to be outdone, the education sector has been dominated by catholic schools like Ateneo de Manila University, De LaSalle University and University of Santo Tomas, among others. 

Though these institutions and many others may have varied charters or juridical personalities as well as diverse missions or business interests, they have one thing in common, they are all employers. As such, they have one common concern, their employees’ welfare which may include, first and foremost, wages or compensation.

Today, these concerns are more pronounced as the catholic church celebrates the 120th year of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891). No less than Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma has promised to bring employees’ welfare to the fore. Seemingly, in bringing it to the fore, the church shall be guided by Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII (per Wikipedia) “criticized the concentration of wealth and power, spoke out against the abuses that workers faced and demanded that workers should be granted certain rights and safety regulations. He upheld the right of voluntary association, specifically commending labor unions.”

In trying to understand this, we must take a look at wages and employment in general, in an all-encompassing perspective. In more professionally managed companies, it is viewed positively as investment not cost. To some cash-strapped institutions, it is something that they would like to control to survive. To some miserly affluent companies or businessmen, however, it is something they’ve made their hapless employees continued to starve. Clearly, in these three scenarios, employers differ in the ways they treat their employees and in their approaches in compensating them. Some are too generous, a few are reasonable and others are just too stingy.  

On the other hand, laborers and employees differ in many ways too. Overly protected by our labor laws, even those with salaries three times higher than the established minimum wage are filing notices of strikes. However, it is a fact too that despite receiving wages way below established floors from unreasonable employers, some laborers just grumble in the corner by their lonesome. Obviously, they prefer to have little something than have nothing at all. Indeed, there are varying approaches among employers and employees. These varied approaches are either necessitated by business and economic conditions or just mere attitude.

Having understood wages and compensation (in Philippine context), the catholic church (in trying to pursue this initiative) must not just focus, however, on family owned or publicly listed companies. The Catholic Church must be reminded that they have business interests (some are undertaken through religious orders) and they are employers too. As they admonish businessmen or preach good practices, they must make sure they promote these practices too in their own businesses. 

Truth be told, history is not on their side, they have had their own shortcomings. To recall, the Catholic Church have its own cases of union busting and intimidation of workers. For one, it is well cited by some scholars that in 1949 the then Cardinal Francis Spellman (Archbishop of New York), in trying to blame communist agitators for influencing the workers, allegedly used seminarians to break a strike by meagerly-paid gravediggers at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York. 

Moreover, in 2008, the recently-retired Bishop Joseph F. Martino of Scranton, Pa., unilaterally revoked the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers, the union that represented diocesan educators for 30 years.  Allegedly, Bishop Martino replaced the union with a diocesan-managed employee relations program that the union head referred to as a “company union.” 

Lest we must forget, the closure of the Divine Word University-Tacloban (DWU-T), an institution of higher learning ran by the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) in Tacloban City, Leyte. Founded in 1927, it was closed by the school administrators after a court ruling favoring the labor union which represents its faculty members and other employees.

To recall, sometime in 1984 and 1985, the faculty and employees organized a labor union and named it Divine Word University Employees Union (DWUEU). Then, DWUEU called for a collective bargaining with the administration of the university. Due to the reluctance of the administrators to negotiate with the union, two prolonged strikes ensued in 1988 and in 1989. Sadly, court battles followed. 

In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the labor union (source: Wikipedia). The decision reads, "In Divine Word University of Tacloban vs. Secretary of Labor and Employment, petitioner therein, Divine Word University of Tacloban, refused to perform its duty to bargain collectively. Thus, we upheld the unilateral imposition on the university of the CBA proposed by the Divine Word University Employees Union.” It said further: “That being the said case, the petitioner may not validly assert that its consent should be a primordial consideration in the bargaining process. By its acts, no less than its action which bespeak its insincerity, it has forfeited whatever rights it could have asserted as an employer.”

As we all know, despite the ruling, the administration still refused to negotiate. Consequently, SVD closed the university in 1995 instead of accepting the Supreme Court ruling.

All told, these labor union-related problems faced by the Catholic church-owned enterprises are wages or compensation related. Corroboratively, as we try to ponder, this is quite intriguing. As we try to look into businesses today, institutions which prices of services are prohibitively high are owned by the Catholic Church. Undeniably, they own the most expensive schools or universities in the country. They also own some of the most expensive hospitals in the country. Logically, they will have better earnings. The question is, have they shared the bounty with their employees too? Have they not outsourced some of their activities like janitorial and facility maintenance to have lesser headaches and better profits?

Indeed, while we appreciate the concerns of the church in trying to impress upon businesses the value and dignity of labor, we can’t help it but invoke them to set a very good example. They are employers themselves and ought to treat their employees with dignity too.  

At the very least, the Catholic Church must be reminded in part by a statement of the 1971 assembly of the world Synod of Bishops termed “Justice in the World” that "anyone who ventures to speak to people about justice must first be just in their eyes."

They should practice what they preach, so to speak. 

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