Please note that this page is from our archives. There may be more up-to-date content about this topic on our website. Use our search engine to find out.
Look at Catholic social teachings.
When caretakers with the Calgary Catholic School Board, members of Local 520, went on strike to defend their no-contracting out clause, they got some support from an unexpected ally. Bishop Frederick Henry, at that time Bishop Elect for Calgary, sent our members and the trustees an article on Catholic social teaching and contracting out.
The 1986 article, “Contracting out and the Christian Vision of Work”, Canadian Catholic Review, by Father Michael Ryan, has some very interesting things to say about contracting out.
Contracting out violates Catholic social principles
The article argues that “work is for the person, not the person for work; and the most serious violation of this principle would be a situation that treated the person as a mere ‘instrument of production’.
“Most cases of contracting out do exactly this…The contracted workers are simply a means, usually a cheaper one, of getting some task done.”
Contracting out is not a management right
The article goes on to state that: “Contracting out is not a managerial prerogative…This is not to say that contracting out may not be done…It does mean that such action must be the result of a decision involving all the parties…owners, managers, workers; a decision which presupposes the complete disclosure of all the relevant facts, including their financial implications.”
Contracting out eliminates decent paying jobs
In his letter, Bishop Henry says that:
“Whatever the intent may be, the effect of contracting out is usually to eliminate decent paying jobs, in favour of non-unionized, low paying
jobs. This is not in the public interest and is quite contrary to Catholic social teaching, which supports the principle of the just wage (vs. the ’going wage’) and which defends not only the right to unionize, but also the social need for unionization. Those who engage in contracting out cannot, morally speaking, disclaim responsibility for these harmful effects.”
Contracting out subordinates human beings to economics
Bishop Henry concluded his letter with a reference from Pope John Paul II: “To consider labour ‘only according to its economic purpose’ says the Pope, ‘is to be guilty of crass materialism. For it places the spiritual meaning of human activity in subordination to material reality’.”
Amen to that!
Ron Lévesque