A "just wage": More than dollars

Health Progress, Mar/Apr 2002 by Hamlin, Jeffrey W

HEALTH PROGRESS

Some Catholic Executives Have Drawn Up a List of Principles Concerning Compensation

For many years, Catholic health care systems and their sponsors have been struggling to interpret and apply the Catholic social teaching concerning "just wages." A just wage, it should be noted, is not the same thing as a "living wage," a minimum compensation level set by local governments for the employees of companies that do business with them. (Nor does it have anything to with federal poverty "levels" or "thresholds.") A "living wage" is not necessarily a just wage, according to Catholic social teaching.

In a moral society, the teaching says, employers and employees, acting as partners, establish a just wage as part of a package that includes other social benefits intended to safeguard and promote the lives and health of workers and their families.1 In calculating the just wage, the employer and employees must consider the business's health and the requirements of the common good, both of which are needed by the larger society.2 Employees' social benefits include access to affordable or subsidized health care, regular rest periods (to permit relaxation and worship), opportunities for selfimprovement and development, an adequate retirement, protection from injury on the job (workers compensation), disability protection, and an overall safe work environment.3

POSITION PAPER ON JUST WAGES

In March 2001, an ad hoc group calling itself Senior Human Resources Executives of Large Catholic Health Systems (Catholic HR Execs) and representing more than 300,000 employees nationwide sent to the CEOs of Catholic health care organizations the draft of a paper called "Position Statement on Just Wages and Affordable Access." The group intended the paper to help Catholic health care leaders address the core principles of Catholic social teaching as they grappled with the complex issues of just wages and affordable access for low-income workers. Several Catholic systems, including Christus Health, have since adopted the paper as a foundational document they can use in their efforts to meet their social justice responsibilities to employees.

In their paper, the Catholic HR Execs argued that neither a local "living wage" nor one set at the federal poverty level is a just wage unless it is complemented by a reasonable social-benefit package and training that allow employees to share in the business enterprise's success through their own skill and thrift. "The obligation in Catholic social teaching is to try to provide a just wage [by] directing employers to establish a floor upon which the basic needs of employees and their families are met," the Catholic HR Execs said.4 The paper offered Catholic health ministry leaders a blueprint for building that floor.

In the Catholic HR Execs' view, employers must follow several basic principles inherent in addressing the just-wage issue. First, working with representatives of their HR and risk management departments and the affected low-income workers themselves, Catholic employers should establish a plan that includes different levels of remediation. This plan should include raising workers' pay to meet or exceed prevailing market rates for the work being done, developing their skills, and informing them of alternative assistance programs. The plan should address such issues as childcare, transportation to and from work, personal savings, and affordable housing. If the plan is to be successful, employers must constantly reassess it, measuring its impact on individual workers, their families, labor markets, the company itself, and the company's success in promoting the common good.

THE JUST WAGE AS A SOCIETAL ISSUE

The Catholic HR Execs see the just wage as a societal issue as well as one for individual employers. Employers thus have a responsibility to educate eligible workers about gaining access to social support programs, including Family Medical Leave Act benefits and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health care coverage for uninsured children.

On the other hand, Catholic social teaching says it is wrong to encourage employees to opt into the welfare system instead of providing them with employer-sponsored benefits. This is particularly true of health care coverage. At the same time, it would be morally irresponsible and poor stewardship for employers to pay such high wages and benefits that they bankrupt their own businesses. "The condition of any particular business and of its owner must also come into question in settling the scale of wages; for it is unjust to demand wages so high that an employer cannot pay them without ruin, and without consequent distress among the working people themselves."5 By the same token, it would be wrong for employers to sell their products at prices so low that they are forced to cut employees' pay. According to Catholic social teaching, wages must be determined in a way that offers the greatest number of employment opportunities. In contemporary Catholic health care, employers may need to subsidize the medical insurance coverage of employees who cannot afford to pay for it, especially those with families.