The following is from Archbishop Tomasi’s address at the 93rd International Labor Conference in Geneva. (Click here for the full text of his remarks.)

“It is the dignity of every human person that requires access to work in condition of personal security, health, fair remuneration, a safe environment. Work is a right and the expression of human dignity…work is the motor for development and poverty elimination, for unlocking the hidden resources of nature, for personal and professional fulfillment and family support, for social participation in the well-being of society.”

And from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work.”

From time to time, it is worth revisiting these basic but crucial premises of all fruitful discussions of labor.