Rerum Novarum is one of the strongest documents ever about social justice and the dignity of workers. It is an encyclical by Pope Leo in 1891 covering the "Condition of Labor. It proved to be a standard for more than a century as a guide for social justice in the workday. It appealed to all men of good will seeking the ideal life on earth. It was basic standard for the right of workers to unite as one for better working conditions. It was written to challenge the communist and socialist view about the right to property.

Today, many are renewing the standards set by Rerum Novarum to confront the betrayal of workers' dignity in our times due to free trade economies that are based on making money on money instead of making things having divorced production from investments. Today the stock market thrives on workers getting fired instead of hired. All men of good will must correct this trend and bring back the proper balance of workers' dignity in the workday. Rerum Novarum maintains that it should be taken for granted that the workman and the employer should make a free agreement as to wages .....wages should be sufficient for the wage earner to live in reasonable and frugal comfort. It the employer or business owner abuse this principle, the worker becomes a victim of injustics.

The worker also has a right to property with that property being their labor. If a person hires out to another, his strength or skill, remains his property and hires out to receive a just return to fulfill his basic needs. We all know what it takes to raise a family and this should be the guiding goal of business to achieve. The employer should not look upon their employees as bondsment and never work them beyond their strenght. In our times companies go outside and outsource their labor needs to by pass their resposibilities. As the master of this labor, the employer may not pursue or exert pressure upon the indigent and destitute for the sake of gain. To use workers for only the sake of personal profit should be condemened by all laws, human and divine. The foremost duty of the state should be to make sure there are lawas and institutions for all to realize the public well being of workers and the right to private property.

Today shoppers vote about the kind of society they want in the cash register line more than they do in a voting booth. All must realize every purchase boomerangs back to their own front door sooner or later and shoppers need to stop shopping their way out of their jobs. We all must stop living off the suffering of others especially in times when the workers are invisible in some far away place in the world.

President Franklin Roosevelt said, Economic diseases are highly communicable. It is spreading wider and wider in our times.