The Catholic Church teaches that work is not merely a means of earning a living but a participation in God's own creative activity and an expression of human dignity. Pope John Paul II's 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens ('On Human Work') is the Church's most comprehensive treatment of this theme. Key principles include: (1) The priority of labor over capital — the economy exists to serve people, not the other way around. (2) The right to productive work, fair wages, and safe working conditions. (3) The right of workers to organize and form unions (affirmed since Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum in 1891). (4) The dignity of all legitimate work — no honest labor is beneath anyone. (5) The right to rest and leisure (rooted in the Sabbath commandment). (6) The obligation of employers to treat workers justly, pay a living wage, and not exploit laborers. These principles apply globally: the Church condemns sweatshop labor, child labor, human trafficking, and any economic system that treats workers as mere instruments of production rather than as persons with inherent dignity.