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IUR ❐ EDITORIAL Editorial: the philosophy of trade union rights Next issue of IUR Articles between 850 and 1,900 words should be sent by email (mail@ictur.org) and accompanied by a photograph and short biographical note of the author. Photographs illustrating the theme of articles are always welcome. All items must be with us by 20 March 2012 if they are to be considered for publication in the next issue of IUR. Subscribe to IUR: to subscribe, complete the box below. I/we would like to subscribe to International Union Rights and enclose £20/US$30/€25. Name/Organisation Address It is a fairly safe bet that most if not all readers of this journal would agree that trade unions are important organisations and that trade union rights are important rights. But it is by no means certain that all readers would agree as to why trade union rights are important. It is to this seemingly straightforward question that we turn our attention for the current edition of IUR. We have encouraged our contributors to take us right back to philosophical basics, examining how a number of lines of philosophical reasoning might be applied to the question. We do not suggest that the philosophers in question supported trade union rights. Rather that the ideas they put forward can serve as justifications or rationales for trade unionism and / or for the protection of trade union rights. Most of the philosophical theories we consider in this edition are concerned with the articulation of human rights or social justice. Our contributors were asked to reflect on the extent to which these diverse theoretical positions could be said to support arguments in favour of trade union rights. Early thinkers took their cues as to what was morally right from principles handed down by the church or from the emerging theory of natural innate rights of man. Academic lawyer Filip Dorrsemont examines the evolution of the official teaching of the Catholic Church on trade unionism and concludes that the Church offers a timid and restricted vision of trade union rights, but notes that it has consistently emphasised its support for these rights. Tonia Novitz, also a legal academic, examines the more secular side of natural rights thinking in order to examine how a novel aspect of Locke’s Post Code Four issues £20/US$30/€25. Cheques should be made payable to “IUR” and sent to: ICTUR, 177 Abbeville Road, London SW4 9RL, UK 17th Century natural rights framework, property rights, might serve workers’ interests. The 18th Century German thinker Immanuel Kant was concerned with the ‘good’. He thought that morally right principles could be ascertained by abstract reasoning by a disinterested person, and that a person could live a moral life by reflecting on what these principles were and by respecting them in their conduct. Contemporary philosopher Nina Power takes us through some of these ideas in an overview of one of the true giants of the history of philosophical thought. Kant, as Power tells us, ‘clears the ground for trying to imagine what equality and universality would look like in practice’. 20th Century American liberal philosopher John Rawls also relied on this idea of disinterested metaphysical reflection, employing a radical ‘thought experiment’ to ask the question as to what principles of justice individuals would agree to when designing society if they had no idea what their place would be within that society. Contemporary philosopher Stuart White talks us through the democratic, liberal concept of society that Rawls believed his ‘original position’ thought-experiment entailed. Materialists, such as 19th Century German thinker Karl Marx, reject the idea that quiet, disinterested metaphysical reflection can alone provide solutions to moral and political problems. Rather, materialists argue that moral and political problems are rooted clearly in the material world, in the relations of the social classes, and around the means of production. John Kelly, professor of industrial relations, argues that ‘diffuse notions of fairness’ probably influence unions more than serious Marxist analysis. From a democratic position professor Steven Friedman takes up a materialist mode of argument and tells us that unions are ‘essential’ engines of engagement that facilitate participation by the poor in politics and decision-making. German philosopher and legal critic Jurgen Habermas also cited much of his early work in a Marxist context though in later years his thinking became rather more complex. Legal academic Ruth Dukes explains Habermas’ communitarian views. Contemporary American philosopher Michael Sandel is another communitarian, but one whose ideas evolved from Rawlsian liberalism rather than Marxism. Alan Bogg argues that Sandel’s ideas have direct relevance to trade unionists. He argues that the participation of citizens in public life, facilitated by trade unions, can help to produce a more just world. In closing, egalitarian thinker and co-author of The Spirit Level Richard Wilkinson outlines how he see trade unions fitting within a framework of social equality. Crucially for trade union internationalists he shows how the Cold War period of ideological confrontation influenced social conditions and thinking on equality in the 20th Century. Looking around us today Wilkinson reminds us that internationally there is a correlation between countries with strong trade union movements and greater equality. Daniel Blackburn and Elizabeth Molinari INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 2 Volume 18 Issue 4 2012
PHILOSOPHY OF TRADE UNION RIGHTS ❐ NATURAL LAW AND RELIGIOUS INSPIRATION Papal Encyclicals: the social teaching of the Catholic Church For the Catholic Church a Papal encyclical is a letter, usually treating some aspect of Catholic doctrine, sent by the Pope and addressed either to bishops (of a region or throughout the world) or more generally to a wider audience. The social teaching of the Catholic Church is based upon a corpus of papal encyclicals. The oldest specific encyclical is Rerum novarum (1891). The encyclicals can be classified at first sight on the basis of an often explicit linkage either to Rerum Novarum or to Populorum progressio (1967). Whereas Rerum novarum assesses the ‘social question’ at the micro level of the employment relation in a Nation State, Populorum progressio tackles the issue of social justice at the macro level of the relation between Nation States, constituting the ‘human family’. The latest encyclical (Caritas in veritate, 2009) continues the tradition started by Populorum Progressio. Both approaches need to be construed as complementary, rather than as two distinct, let alone conflicting ‘action programmes’. The official social teaching of the Church does not coincide with Catholic Social Thought or with the Social Tradition of the Church. The papal encyclicals do constitute the most authoritative source from a hierarchical point of view. None of the encyclicals has ever been ‘repealed’. In fact, the subsequent Pontiffs have frequently referred to previous encyclicals. For a more systematic overview of the Social Teaching, two recent documents produced by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, can be very useful. A Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) provides a ‘synthetic’, but ‘exhaustive’ overview of the social teaching. It has not yet been updated to integrate the ideas included in the latest encyclical. Another useful tool, is the Dizionario di dottrina sociale della chiesa (2005), an authorised dictionary which helps to understand some of the concepts of the Compendium. In countries marked by trade union pluralism based upon religious, philosophical and political convictions, the encycical Rerum novarum (1891) is generally believed to have constituted a starting point for a Catholic or Christian labour movement. Since the Catholic Church consistently rejected most of the ideologies that marked the 19th and 20th Centuries, it tends to contribute to maintaining identities based upon these convictions. Ever since other Encyclicals have been adopted, which have shaped what is called the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church. Ever since Rerum Novarum, the Church has devoted a lot of attention to the role of workers’ associations, especially trade union and to industrial relations and collective labour law in these encyclicals. In order to highlight this, this contri- bution is focusing on three intertwined workers’ rights (right to organise, freedom of collective bargaining and the right to strike). For trade unions of a catholic denomination, they are considered to have been and to a lesser extent continue to be a source of inspiration. The Church and labour law Since labour law was primarily developed at the level of the Nation States, the encyclicals which sprang from Rerum novarum and subsequent encyclicals contain multiple references to the development of domestic labour law: freedom of association, collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to work, right to the protection of health and safety, including the issue of working time, the right to fair remuneration. Explicit references to labour law in the encyclicals are rare. In view of the object of social justice within the ‘human family’, it seems obvious nevertheless to relate their message to the recognition of fundamental workers’ rights in international human rights catalogues and to the growing awareness of some multi-national (corporate) companies of their social responsibility in a globalised economy. These human rights catalogues are relevant for the employment relations within the Nation States as well. In sum, it is essential not to disregard the Populorum progressio line of encyclicals while studying issues of the employment relation at micro level; just as it is essential not to disregard the Rerum novarum line of encyclicals while studying the issue of social justice at a global level. Thus, ‘caritas in veritate’ is being construed as a general principle underlying the entire Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. In Sollicitudo rei socialis John Paul II has defined the social teaching in a ‘negative’ way, disqualifying it as an ideology. Its main aim is to interpret these realities, determining their conformity with or divergence from the lines of the Gospel teaching on man and his vocation, a vocation which is at once earthly and transcendent; its aim is thus to guide Christian behaviour. It therefore belongs to the field, not of ideology, but of theology and particularly of moral theology. However, the Church has not been very reluctant to condemn ideologies, especially liberal capitalism, socialism, and Marxist collectivism. Trade unions and trade union freedom Freedom of association is an essential condition for the development of industrial relations. Rerum novarum considers ‘the spirit of revolutionary change’ as a disturbance of a political and economic nature’. Paradoxically, trade unions are not seen as a cause of such disturbance, but as a key to the solution of the problems provoking such a disturbance. Collective labour has been a recurring issue in papal encyclicals. Pontiffs have stressed the crucial role of trade unions and have recognized freedom of association FILIP DORSSEMONT is Professor of Labour Law in the Centre Droit, Entreprise et Société Jean Renauld at the Université Catholique de Louvain Page 3 Volume 18 Issue 4 2012 INTERNATIONAL union rights
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