So it would take a brave man to point out that unions “grew up from the struggle of the workers — workers in general but especially the industrial workers — to protect their just rights vis-a-vis the entrepreneurs and the owners of the means of production,” or to insist that “the experience of history teaches that organizations of this type are an indispensable element of social life.”
That’s what Pope John Paul II said (the italics are his) in the 1981 encyclical “Laborem Exercens.
Quotes from Abraham Lincoln as well in what is a good summary of the history of how laborers have been overlooked as the drivers of our economy. For a more current example, it is interesting to note that almost three years after the beginning of the U.S. recession (in December 2007), after trillions of dollars to save capital from a total collapse and refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy, President Obama is finally attempting to Get Serious ("Economic Adviser Pick is Known as Labor Expert", NYT 8/29/11) about jobs in the economy.
Makes me sick.
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