May 23, 2020
"Let the working man and the employer make free agreements,
and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages;
nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more
imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely,
that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and
well-behaved wage-earner."
The second half of Leo XIII's classic encyclical offers a defense of the right of association, exhortation to preferential option for the poor, emphasis on the importance of Sabbath rest, as well as an explication of the principles of a just wage.
Full Text at CatholicCulture.org: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4904
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