(ROME, ITALY) - Labor Unions that protect and defend the dignity of work and the rights of Workers continue to have an essential role in society, especially in promoting inclusion, Pope Francis told Members of the Italian Confederation of Union Workers last week (on June 28th).

"There is ‘no good society without a good Union’ and there is ‘no good Union that isn't reborn every day in the peripheries, that doesn't transform the rejected stones of the economy into corner stones,’" Pope Francis said.  "There is ‘no justice together if it isn't together with today's excluded ones."

Unions, he said, risk losing their "prophetic nature" when they mimic the very institutions they are called to challenge, he said.

"Unions, over time, have ‘ended up resembling politicians too much, or rather political parties, their language, their style,’" the Pope said.  Labor Unions must guard and protect Workers, but also defend the rights of those "outside the walls," particularly those who are retired and the excluded who are "also excluded from rights and democracy."

Pope Francis denounced situations in which children are forced to work rather than being allowed to study, which is the "only good 'job' for children."

Turning to one of his frequently voiced concerns, the Pope told the Union Leaders that a society that leaves young men and women without jobs is "foolish and shortsighted."

"When young people are outside the world of work, businesses ‘lack energy, enthusiasm, innovation and the joy of living which are precious common goods that a make a better economic life and public happiness,’" he said.

The Pope's speech kicked off the Union's national conference on the theme: "For the person, for work."  Reflecting on the conference theme, the Pope said that work without respect for the person "becomes something ‘inhuman,’" while a person without work is incomplete.  “People ‘truly flourish’ when they have a job, "the ‘most common form of cooperation that humanity has generated in its history,’" the Pope said. 

Pope Francis said he asks Working Parents if they play with their children and is often told that some mothers and fathers leave for work when their children are still sleeping or arrive home when they are already in bed.

"This is ‘inhumane,’" he said. "For this reason, this other culture (of leisure) ‘must go together with’ work.  A person ‘is not made just for work, because we don't always work and we shouldn't always work.’"

To Read This Labor News Story In Its Entirety, Go To: www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/06/28/pope-francis-labor-unions-are-essential-society