Message for the World Day of Decent Work 2021

Today, we see that the world of work is becoming progressively worse , the denial of rights at work, the deterioration of democracy, the violation of human rights, and social justice, the rejection of pluralism, the elimination of secularism, the promotion of political hatred and fundamentalism.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has recently adopted the concept of the effectiveness of “social protection for everyone” as strategic objective, focussing on income security with an emphasis on the poorest. This requires identifying the profitable and equitable means by which social protection can be spread to all groups. And it is necessary to focus on providing social protection to the informal sector. The vision of “decent work” sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives. It implies opportunities for productive work by providing a fair income. It requires security in the workplace and social protection for families, through better prospects of personal development and social integration. It requires freedom so that people can express their concerns, organise themselves and participate in decisions that affect their lives and the equality of opportunities and treatment for all women and men. In November 2018, the ILO said that 31% of Indian workers worked in unhealthy conditions, while around 41% are poorly paid, placing India 19th out of 22nd countries of the Asian region. 

Sustainable growth requires good health, nutrition and education. This can promote the transition from low-productivity and livelihood activities to decent and highly productive work, and from the informal to formal economy. An adequate social security promotes investment in human capital as for employers as for workers. It also enables to workers to adopt to change and makes easier fair and inclusive structural changes. As effective automatic stabilizer in times of crisis, the social security helps to mitigate the economic and social impact of economic downturns, to generate resilience and to accelerate the general growth recovery. We can learn a lot from the experience of developing or developed countries in spreading the coverage of contributory social security schemes to workers in informal economy. 

World Bank has warned that COVID-19 has been creating a new generation of poverty and unease by debt, and IMF has said that developing countries ran the risk of going back a decade. The virus has enlarged the income or wealth gaps based on class, race and gender. Women has been affected, but also because they had to take on great part of additional burden of childcare when the schools closed. In some countries, women’s participation in working population has decreased to its lowest level since mid-80s. 

In order to progress the comprehensive laws of social protection, it is necessary to ensure a minimum social protection net for all workers, regardless of wage, enterprise size and place of origin. Basically, it must be based on participatory democracy principles, inclusion, dignity, equity, equality, accountability and transparency. Factors such as social spending, progressive taxation and the functioning of labour rights must be the essential indicators to measure the government commitment to promoting the equity and reducing inequalities. Because governments have a key role to perform on creating an adequate environment in order to happen. In all aspects, worker organisations and trade unions must also fight for universal social justice and a humanist approach of political economies. 

Message written by Movement of Christian Workers from India 

WORLD MOVEMENT OF CHRISTIAN WORKERS 

YCW becomes ‘Living Hours’ employer

As we approach World Day of Decent Work we’re proud to announce that we’ve become accredited as Living Hours employers. 

Since April 2020 we’ve been a Living Wage employer, paying our employees the real Living Wage – currently £9.50 in the UK or £10.85 in London.  This new accreditation means we will also provide them with a guaranteed and stable minimum number of working hours each week.

The Living Hours programme sets a new standard for employers seeking to go beyond the Living Wage in their commitment to decent work. As an accredited employer, we’ve committed to providing at least four weeks’ notice for every shift, with guaranteed payment if shifts are cancelled within this notice period. We’ll also provide a guaranteed minimum of 16 working hours every week (unless the worker requests otherwise), and a contract that accurately reflects hours worked.

The new Living Hours standard reflects the fact that since the Living Wage campaign began in 2001, the shape of low-paid work has changed. There has been a well-documented rise in insecurity, with over 5 million workers in low-paid and insecure work on the eve of the pandemic. Since the pandemic began insecure work has become more prevalent among both key workers, who have kept the economy going, and low-paid service workers whose jobs have been most disrupted by lockdowns.

National president, Marc Besford, has said that “It’s time to put an end to insecure working contracts with unpredictable hours. Now more than ever, with "so many facing uncertainty, being unable to rely on a steady income - even in the short term - is adding to the stress people are experiencing. Living Hours play a crucial role in providing people with financial security, clarity and certainty”.

Anniversary of Joseph Cardijn's Ordination

There can be no doubt that the success and growth of the Young Christian Workers movement was a consequence of the vision, determination and dedication of its founder, Joseph Cardijn.

Cardijn was born in the town of Hal, in Belgium. His parents were Henry and Louise Cardijn. He was a lively boy with an enquiring mind and very sensitive to every human suffering he met, especially that of the workers he saw going to the factories at dawn each morning.

At age fourteen, Cardijn was preparing to finish his studies and enter the working world. His parents looked forward to the additional household income. However, one night he told his parents that he wanted to become a priest. With no hesitation his parents agreed to work harder to allow their son to enter the seminary.

In 1897 Cardijn entered the junior seminary at Malines. When the holidays came, he visited his schoolmates now working in the factories. But his friends gave him a cold reception believing that he had betrayed them and joined with the forces that oppressed the working class. Their rejection wounded his heart.

This experience stayed with the young Cardijn as he went back to his studies in seminary. However, it was the death of his father that would be the moment he felt drawn to respond to a new call from God, a call that was clear and decisive. In his innermost being he swore to consecrate his whole life as a priest to save the workers.

In 1906, Cardinal Mercier ordained Joseph Cardijn a priest and he began to develop his own education in the sociological and political spheres, not only theology and philosophy.

Today therefore, we thank God for the revelation of the young Joseph Cardijn and his vocational calling to the priesthood. We also thank the countless number of priests, religious, bishops and Popes who have supported our mission since its creation.

Current National Chaplain of the YCW in England and Wales, Msg. John Marsland, said: “The tradition of priests empowering the laity through the YCW has been our cornerstone since Cardijn began the movement. He recognised that our priestly ministry had to be one that was close to the lives of the faithful and those in need of our help. We continue that mission to this day.”

40th Anniversary of Laborem Exercens

On the 14th September 1981 Pope St John Paul II published an encyclical “Laborem Exercens” which addressed social issues in the world of work and to celebrate the 90th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum” was reaffirming the dignity of workers as human persons.

The encyclical identifies a potential threat that at the time viewed labour simply as a means to an end with no consideration about the human person.

A link to the document can be found HERE

There was some key issues from the encyclical:

Work - making life more human: Laborem Exercens identified work as the key to the whole social question (LE #3). As an organic development of the Church’s social action and teaching it states that every human person at work reflects the action of the creator.

Even in the age of machinery and digital work the proper subject of work continues to be the human person. So when people are treated as instruments in the production process this is identified as a threat to the right order of values, for workers are the ends not just the means of work.

The human person as the Subject of Work: The encyclical recalls Church teaching regarding the priority of labour over capital. All the technological advances that currently act as instruments of work are the results of work previously undertaken by workers.

The rights of workers: The rights of workers are to be seen within the broad context of human rights. Not only to be paid for work undertaken but a sense of personal involvement is needed. The worker is more than a cog in a system. A just wage and other social benefits are the concrete means that verify the justice of the whole socioeconomic system. Trade Unions have an important part to play in the right for just pay and to uphold the dignity of the worker.

Decent Work for All Seminar

To celebrate World Day for Decent Work on the 7th October 2021 the YCW have teamed up with our sister Movement the Movement of Christian Workers (MCW) to organise a seminar which will be held online on Saturday 2nd October 2021, 10am-1.30pm.

This seminar is entitled “Decent Work for All”. A range of speakers are planned to reflect the situation faced by the members and their contacts of both movements.

To sign up for the seminar please go too: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decent-work-for-all-tickets-165881902235 for you to book your place at the seminar. We do hope that you are able to join us on what promises to be an informative, lively, and forward-thinking occasion.

NJPN Conference 2021: “We come together for our common home”

Last weekend Marc Besford, National President, attended the 2021 conference of the National Justice and Peace Network of England and Wales (NJPN). The chant: “We come together for our common home”, ran through the liturgies at this year’s conference. It attracted 200 participants to Derbyshire for the first face to face meeting – albeit through masks - of Justice and Peace activists from every diocese and Movements since the pandemic started. The mantra came from a new hymn written by liturgical musician Marty Haugen especially for the conference, which took the theme, ‘2021: Moment of Truth - Action for Life on Earth’.

 A liturgy group, led by Colette Joyce, Justice and Peace Fieldworker in Westminster Diocese, and including pianist Christine Allen, Director of CAFOD, and Columban co-worker James Trewby on the clarinet reflected the broad range of participants seeking to mobilise for the November COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. Also, to promote ecological conversion and action in the Church and wider society, all inspired by the papal encyclical Laudato Si’.

Marc Besford with representatives of Leeds Justice and Peace and SPARK! Social Justice

 Conference chair Christine Allen reminded that there are now 100 days to COP26 and CAFOD is working with the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) and faith leaders to lobby for global warming to be kept below 1.5 degrees. She reported that CAFOD, “amplifies voices around the world in climate vulnerable situations”. Bishop John Arnold of Salford, lead bishop on the environment for England and Wales, said Churches and faiths are making clear they want action and “we can mend our common home”. He has been in zooms with COP26 president Alok Sharma MP, “trying to speak loudly to politicians”.  In the conference Mass he thanked NJPN “for who you are, what you stand for and what you want, and for keeping Pope Francis as an inspiration in our lives and actions.”

 “It is important to acknowledge the truth of the crisis of our common home,” Fr P. Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam SDB, Coordinator of the 'Ecology and Creation' sector of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, told the conference in a video message. He said, “the planet is crying out and the poor are crying out; we need to open our ears and hear these painful cries;” feeling there is hope and that “this could be a watershed, a moment of change.” He told NJPN that, “you can count on the support of our Dicastery as we work together under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as families, parishes, communities, and institutions, to heal and protect mother Earth.”

 Keynote speaker Lorna Gold, Chair of the Board of the GCCM and author of ‘Climate Generation: Awakening to Our Children’s Future’, highlighted the “vibrant network of networks sustaining and nurturing ecological conversion right across the world” and turning Laudato Si’ “into a lived reality.” She applauded the role young people have played in stimulating climate action. “Young people have done more in two years than the rest of us have done over three decades” she said. Lorna felt the pandemic is teaching us that we are all connected to each other and to nature and what it means to act together to face a common threat. She felt Pope Francis’ vision of ecological conversion refers to “community conversion” and asked: “What if that process of community ecological conversion was to extend to the entire world of faith communities that still encompass 80% of the world’s population?”

 Andy Atkins, head of Arocha UK, underlined how far Churches have come with programmes such as Live Simply, Eco Church, Eco Congregation, Climate Sunday and Fossil Fuel Divestment with Operation Noah. In fact, more than 5000 churches across the Christian denominations are registered with green schemes which “was unimaginable 30 years ago” but “we need to speed up.” He deplored the UK government’s loss of credibility to deal with the crises facing us. “At a time when the government says it is leading the world it has cut its aid budget and has opened the door to further fossil fuel development,” he lamented; “we should be saying ‘No More Fossil Fuel Exploitation’ in this country!” Lorna felt the 20 October announcement of fossil fuel divestment should include the 18 Catholic dioceses on England and Wales that have not yet announced divestment.

 Fr Eamonn Mulcahy CSSp’s presentation on, ‘Let us dream together: Pope Francis’ Gospel Vision for an Integral Humanity’, considered criticisms of excessive anthropocentrism, consumerism and the technocratic paradigm - all themes taken from Laudato Si’.  “We must be agents for healing and restoration” he said, “respecting every living creature and organism.”

 Speaker Mark Rotherham, of the Northern Dioceses Environmental Group, felt it essential we transform our current economic system so that it promotes both social equality and environmental protection. “A good life-sustaining economy is about slowly down and recognising planetary boundaries” he said. He described the arms industry as “a huge shadow over our nation” and felt that we need to withdraw legitimacy from this draw on global resources and energy.

 NJPN Chair Paul Southgate taught the conference a Navajo hymn ‘The world is so beautiful,’ and called on young people to feed in their primary concerns to the conference. Young university and school students told participants bluntly that they would like “less of fossil fuel companies pretending to care and schools accepting money from them”. They urged Catholics “to challenge the increasingly hostile policy towards refugees”, many of whom are victims of our UK actions in arms trading and raising global temperatures. One criticised “the detachment of our education system from real life” and the attitude that, “the more money we have the more successful we are.”

 An enthusiastic action planning session at the end included dioceses forming Laudato Si’ Action Platform groups, organising Climate Sunday Masses, promoting the Live Simply programme in parishes and schools, and urging divestment from fossil fuels. Inspiration was taken from a presentation by Emma Gardner, new Head of Environment in Salford Diocese, who manages the flagship Laudato Si’ Centre and stimulates environmental action in Salford's parishes and schools. Columbans and Salesians are among those arranging a 24-hour prayer vigil on 5 November – during COP26 - that parishes can join, with intentions fed in from around the world. Many dioceses plan to connect with the Young Christian Climate Network (YCCN) pilgrimage to Glasgow and the Camino to COP26, setting off in September.

Around 15 workshops were available on such topics as: ‘Sustainable Development Goals,’ ‘Conflict and Environment,’ and a ‘Nature Explorer Walk’ with a botanist. Justice and Peace Scotland gave a briefing around ‘Attendance at COP26 – real or virtual’.  Since 2005, NJPN has regularly taken an environmental theme for the national conference and its Environment Working Group, formed that year, helped plan the 2021 conference.