“Promoting decent and dignified work, with the cooperation of trade unions, so as to have an approach based on social justice to combat poverty”. Card. Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, used these words to explain the goal of the international meeting of trade unions which started today at the Vatican’s new Synod Hall on the topic: “From Populorum Progressio to Laudato Si’. Labor and the workers’ movement at the center of a humane, integral, inclusive and sustainable development”.  “In ancient times, the work was for slaves, not for freemen”, the cardinal recalled: “With the advent of Christianity, the meaning of work is transformed, and in accordance with the Sacred Scriptures, it was the first thing that God did and then entrusted to man as a vocation. God worked for six days and allowed men to work for the protection of his creation”. Hence the “dignity associated with work, which is something connected to the nature of man. According to Scripture, work is what God did and what has been entrusted to mankind”. With the industrial revolution, Card. Turkson went on to say, “there has been a change in the perception of work”: at the heart of Rerum Novarum is “the concern to protect people who are being exploited” and the admonition that “human beings must not be exploited as machines”. “Dignified and decent work is work that respects the dignity of human beings”, the cardinal said, quoting one of the key principles of the social doctrine of the Church, according to which dignified work is “work in a safe environment with a decent wage that allows access to healthcare for both the worker and their family”. In Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate and in Pope Francis’ Laudato si’, Card. Turkson noted, “work is addressed in reference to technology, since the latter sometimes causes people to lose their jobs”. Indeed, “facing the challenges of technological work that deprive human beings of their jobs” is the ultimate challenge we must tackle today on the labour market: “The fact that technology takes work away from human beings becomes a challenge for the modern world”. “The Church – the prefect said – wants to ensure that work is an expression of the human being by addressing the issue of robotics and technological work that sometimes deprive man of the right to work”. As Pope Francis said this week, “work must be ethical, not necessarily technological”: this entails the need to seek “a balance that allows people to live and express their dignity through work”, Card. Turkson concluded, urging governments to “adopt a different approach” to work, based on the importance of technology but also on the need to ensure a dignified work for the human person.