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Testimonies for the Church Volume 8
The Question of Wages
The institution is now in a prosperous condition, and its managers
should not insist upon the low rate of wages that was necessary in
its earlier years. Worthy, efficient workers should receive reasonable
wages for their labor, and they should be left to exercise their own
judgment as to the use they make of their wages. In no case should
they be overworked. The physician in chief himself should have larger
wages.
To the physician in chief I wish to say: Although you have not the
matter of wages under your personal supervision, it is best for you to
look carefully into this matter; for you are responsible, as the head
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of the institution. Do not call upon the workers to do so much of the
sacrificing. Restrict your ambition to enlarge the institution and to
accumulate responsibilities. Let some of the means flowing into the
sanitarium be given to the institutions needing help. This is certainly
right. It is in accordance with God’s will and way, and it will bring the
blessing of God upon the sanitarium.
I wish to say particularly to the board of directors: “Remember
that the workers should be paid according to their faithfulness. God
requires us to deal with one another in the strictest faithfulness. Some
of you are overburdened with cares and responsibilities, and I have
been instructed that there is danger of your becoming selfish and
wronging those whom you employ.”
Each business transaction, whether it has to do with a worker
occupying a position of responsibility or with the lowliest worker
connected with the sanitarium, should be such as God can approve.
Walk in the light while you have the light, lest darkness come upon
you. It would be far better to expend less in buildings and give your
workers wages that are in accordance with the value of their work,
exercising toward them mercy and justice.
From the light that the Lord has been pleased to give me, I know
that He is not pleased with many things which have taken place in
reference to the workers. God has not laid every particular open to me,
but warnings have come that in many things decided reformation is
needed. I have been shown that there is need of fathers and mothers
in Israel being united with the institution. Devoted men and women
should be employed, who, because they are not continually pressed