Labor unions and the common good
In recent months, labor cases—from the Nexperia layoffs to the Foodpanda riders’ legal battle over pay reductions—have drawn public attention. Alongside the ongoing calls for a living wage, these reflect a society still wrestling with fundamental questions of labor and justice. Yet labor unions remain suspect in the eyes of many in a predominantly Catholic country. But what does Catholicism have to do with this? In the Gospel, we recall that Jesus met His first disciples at their work: on their boats mending their nets (Matthew 4:18–22). This was not incidental. Christ sanctified labor and today it remains a site of vocation, dignity, and moral action. Labor is a moral reality rooted in the dignity of the human person. When rightly ordered, they are instruments of the common good, a principle enshrined in both Catholic social teaching and the Philippine constitutional tradition.
The 1987 Philippine Constitution uses the term common good in its Preamble. The late Fr. Joaquin Bernas explained that the shift from “general welfare” to “common good” was a deliberate choice meant to express a vision of social order that allows every citizen to attain their fullest development—economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually. Meanwhile, the Labor Code of the Philippines explicitly affirms the right of workers to self-organization and collective bargaining. These rights are not conveniences to be tolerated or rescinded when inconvenient. They are legal and moral imperatives precisely flowing from the very architecture of a just society.
Catholic teaching also supports this view. The Church’s social doctrine defines the common good as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.”
“Laborem Exercens” (1981) by Pope John Paul II goes even further: he writes that unions are “an indispensable element of social life,” born of the legitimate struggle to protect workers’ rights. Here, John Paul II introduces a critical point: the recognition that work’s primary value lies not in what is produced, but in the dignity of the one who works.
Those who criticize unions claim that workplaces are not charities. But charity, in Catholic teaching, is not mere almsgiving; it is more importantly willing the good of the other. Others reflexively associate unions with socialism. But most unions today are not socialist. They do not aim to seize the means of production, but to secure fair wages, safe conditions, and dignity through negotiation. They also operate within the existing framework of cooperation with employers, and are thus signs of moral and civic maturity.
Many of those in upper management regard labor unions with condescension. They market their institutions as champions of dignity, yet actively undermine the conditions that allow for individual moral and rational flourishing. While it is true that unions have, at times, resorted to strikes, they typically follow prolonged periods of failed negotiation. Perhaps the more urgent question is not why some workers organize, but why their leaders allowed conditions to deteriorate to the point where they felt they had no other recourse.
Critics seem to come from a place of privilege, unable to empathize with the lives of the farmer, the factory worker, the delivery man, and the rank and file. Among them are Catholics, including the ultraconservative, who ignore the very tradition they claim to defend, forgetting that the Christ they worship was not only true God but also a humble carpenter who dignified labor. Likewise, it is not uncommon for those who publicly advocate for virtue and the common good to struggle with consistency in practice. Beyond the lecture stage, one sometimes observes patterns of behavior that undermine the very values they espouse: men and women who talk about dignifying work in public, but berate workers, collude with peers, and cultivate workplace hostility in private.
We cannot credibly champion justice while denying workers the very means by which they pursue it. We cannot speak of, as one of my favorite online communities describe as “authentically Catholic politics of virtue and the common good,” while demeaning workers. No society that aspires to justice can afford to treat the dignity of workers as negotiable. A just social order requires more than sentiment. It requires structures, precisely like labor unions, that uphold the moral bonds between work, dignity, and the common good.
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