Let’s Not Lay Anyone Off
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Friday, March 13, 2009 1:00 PM
This is Paul Levy, CEO of a Boston hospital facing tough economic times.
Here’s a heartening story about him and his employees working together to save everyone’s job.
Mr. Levy didn’t want to have to fire the janitors and food service people who could least cope with job loss, so he approached his entire staff to find better solutions. And they came through, in spades.
The consensus was that the workers don’t want anyone to get laid off and are willing to give up pay and benefits to make sure no one does. A nurse said her floor voted unanimously to forgo a 3 percent raise. A guy in finance who got laid off from his last job at a hospital in Rhode Island suggested working one less day a week. Another nurse said she was willing to give up some vacation and sick time. A respiratory therapist suggested eliminating bonuses.
“I’m getting about a hundred messages per hour,” Levy said yesterday, shaking his head.
The piece highlights Levy’s leadership, which is certainly praiseworthy, but what touched my heart is the overwhelming response from everyone working for him. Although I take it from the name this is a Jewish hospital, this is an excellent example of a Catholic social principle: solidarity.
The Catechism defines solidarity this way:
#1939 The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of “friendship” or “social charity,” is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood. An error, “today abundantly widespread, is disregard for the law of human solidarity and charity, dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality in rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to. This law is sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross to his heavenly Father, on behalf of sinful humanity.”
This principle of solidarity is key to social justice and to economic prosperity in Catholic social teaching:
#1941 Socio-economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity: solidarity of the poor among themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between employers and employees in a business, solidarity among nations and peoples. International solidarity is a requirement of the moral order; world peace depends in part upon this.
In other words, charity, justice and basic human dignity require that we resist class warfare and instead work together —and that’s exactly what these people are doing. Read the whole story; it’s a refreshing antidote to the usual headlines of corruption, greed, scapegoating and zero-sum games.
With a polite nod to Inside Catholic.
Print Blog
Email a FriendPost a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
