Debate: Should Catholics support today’s strike?

“when it cannot be avoided, or at least when it is necessary to obtain a proportionate benefit”

As a public sector work who could have struck today but did not, no, I don’t think it does fulfil those conditions. As the article states, talks are still in progress. In any case this is much more an issue for those who have been in the public sector for a long time – the pension arrangements for more recent recruits are different anyway.

None of my colleagues who have struck have gone onto the picket line downstairs. They’ve treated it as an unpaid day off, to do things like shop for Christmas or have their hair done. I think if they’re going to strike, they should strike properly, not treat it the same as leave.

I fully support the right to strike within the framework very well expressed in CSD 304. So where are we today? Well, talks are not exhausted so maybe the action is premature. Is the action contrary to the common good? This, I am afraid, will be difficult to gauge amongst the claims and counter-claims. The trade unions will claim massive support for the day, but that no-one was endangered by the action. Meanwhile the PM has already described the day as a ‘damp squib’, but other spokesmen will no doubt claim the action has cost the economy hundreds of millions. Is a ‘proportionate benefit’ achievable? This one-day stoppage is very unlikely to secure any, let alone all, concessions sought from government. 

I should add that contrary to the claim in the article that, ‘For low-paid workers, especially, they face a dramatic reduction in the amount of money they take home each month’ this is not, in fact, the case. Those on £15,000 or less – the real lowest paid in the public sector – will not be disadvantaged by the changes. It is those in the higher, and highest paid, posts who will pay the greatest contributions increase and receive reduced pensions. The lowest paid are being used as propaganda – and a battering ram – by the high and highest paid in the public sector: that is morally dubious.

‘This action against them therefore contravenes the fifth, seventh & eighth commandments.’ The fifth commandment – really?

“but public sector workers are demanding pensions that people in the private sector no longer have: they are, therefore, not thinking about the good of the country as a whole.”
I have been paying 10% of my wages per month to my work’s pension fund, for 25 years.  I also pay NI, Income tax, Council tax and road tax.  I started work on the understanding that I would retire at 60.  I am now told I’ll have to work to 68.  My pay has been frozen for the last 2 years, with changes to conditions making my working week longer; no pay rise for the next 2 years either.  I don’t earn bonuses, unlike those in the private sector (a member of my family in the private sector recenlty got a bonus amounting to just under my yearly salarly)
Making sure everyone has an equally rotten pension is not fair or just, it’s just sour grapes of the worst sort. Can’t private sector workers take action about their poor pensions, rather than wishing equally poor pensions on us?
I am not happy about strike action, but it is certainly not anti-catholic nor anti-christian to participate as long there is no violence or intimidation inolved.  I am not required to be a slave, I can withdraw my labour if I want to- unpaid, of course.

Yes – violence against one’s neighbour – bullying, intimidating etc contravenes the inviolate nature of human dignity – read what violation of the 5th commandment entails in the penny catechism.

‘Bullying, intimidating etc’ can indeed describe aspects of government and employers’ behaviour. Likewise those terms could be used to describe the purpose of picketing. I know, I have done my turns at picket duty. 

Strike action is the last resort – perfectly viable and permissible in aiming towards ANY potential benefit in this paradigm; proportionality enters the fray when there is non-categorical injustice [a morally disordered situation where it is permissible for one to walk away, accept and to endure it] ; that does not apply – this is judicial injustice and must imperatively be opposed [an intrinsic moral disorder which must be opposed lest one enters into submissive conspiracy]. Because of the Government’s position – inaction has become a impossible action lest one falls into commission of collaboration with injustice against one’s neighbour.

The Government is being utterly recalcitrant – reneging on a contract; forcing them to pay more contributions and work an extra eight years to gain that already promised pension ; and for what reason?

George Osborne has already stated why: To accelerate a balancing of the books; in other words this has nothing to do with a rebalancing of the public/private ‘injustice’; rather this is governmental grand larceny.

The Public sector workers have been left with no other option – especially once the Government categorically stated they will not provide a better deal – rather they will enforce a worse one should this one be refused.

In the sake of Justice for us all – we should be supporting this – for a crime against our neighbour is one against our very selves.

So from a moral theological perspective – it’s not a question of questioning the morality of the strike [which has become axiomatic] – it’s more a question of how we should act to support the strike.

Reading the comments here, I wonder if most of the writers are in touch with reality. Every working person, bar the very rich, is going to suffer in the coming years due to the gross mismanagement of the economy by, in particular the previous government and the bankers. Add to this the ready acceptance, by many of the people, of cheap loans which enabled them to overspend and indulge (encouraged of course by the government) so leaving many in debt when the crunch has come (and will get even worse). In the situation we find ourselves now it is useless to cry “unfair” – of course it is unfair, but the task now is to get ourselves out of the mess and striking at this time is the height of folly.  In previous times one took a job in the public sector on the understanding that pay would be less than in the commercial world but this was balanced by a secure pension and job security. However,  some of the public sector, including teachers, got very large salary rises some years back which increased their pension entitlement hugely (this should have rung warning bells) and this is just not affordable in today’s straitened circumstances. Too many people have been acting like the foolish virgins of the parable and did  not make contingency plans – and this includes politicians, bankers but also the general public many of whom were only too happy to go along with the immediate gratification culture while the more prudent lived within their means. I have felt betrayed for years by the spend what you haven’t got culture and the low interest rates which encouraged this and discouraged saving. However I realise what’s done is done, and  now we must all try to try to get out of the mess and not hinder what is being done to help. It is not as if the public sector are being reduced to penury – certainly it is much tougher than what was expected but we will all be affected and many will be worse off than teachers and local government bureaucrats. The time to take action is when the politicians are called to account at election time. It is quite pointless to talk about entitlements when quite plainly the country is living “on tick” – and if one sector gets “entitlements” inevitably others will suffer.

I now fully appreciate the meaning of ‘pontificate’ as a verb.

I am not sorprissed it all by the position af the Vatican about the right to strike, only an organization against the right of the poor to have human rights in their own land (Latin America, Africa) because according to the Bishop of Rome La teologia de la Liberación has according to him socialist fundation, putting a side the facism of the Rich tours the poor people of America, what is the poor people of USA wants? Justice, enough is enough rat zinger the people has had enough and remember Rusia an France