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Wages
工资
An honest living 体面的“生活”
More companies find paying a living wage makes sense
越来越多的公司发现支付“生活工资”是有道理的
Nov 8th 2014 | From the print edition of The Economist
译者：forestmoon
WAGES have been falling in Britain since 2007, once inflation is taken into account, making it harder and harder for workers to make ends meet. A legally enforced minimum wage, designed to prevent workers from being exploited, has been in existence since 1999. The current rate is ￡6.50 ($10.40) an hour.
自2007年伊始，如果考虑通货膨胀，英国的工资就呈下降趋势，这使得人们愈发入不敷出。法定最低工资——用来防止工人们被剥削的一项政策——已从1999年被开始执行。目前是每小时6.50英镑（10.40美元）的水平。
But anti-poverty campaigners have been lobbying for something more ambitious—a “living wage”, which they calculate is the minimum necessary to meet housing, food and other basic needs. On November 3rd they announced that this rate (which firms are not obliged to pay) had increased from ￡7.65 to ￡7.85 an hour, and from ￡8.80 to ￡9.15 an hour in London.
但是，反贫困战士们正在为一个更加雄心勃勃的目标游说——一项“生活工资”，计算出的旨在覆盖住房、食品和其它基本需求的最低需求工资。11月3日，他们宣布这个水平（当然并不要求公司支付）已经从7.65英镑/小时提升至7.85英镑/小时，而伦敦的水平则从每小时8.80英镑提升到了9.15英镑。
Just 35,000 workers will benefit from the change, but campaigners are lobbying hard for more companies to adopt the concept. Royal Bank of Scotland has become the latest to do so, making it the 18th company in the FTSE 100 index to sign up, compared with just two in 2011.
仅仅有35,000个工人能够从这项变化中获益，但战士们正在游说更多的公司采用这个概念。苏格兰皇家银行是最新同意的公司，也是在富时100指数中第18个签署同意的公司，而2011年该指数中仅仅有2家公司。
Some of this change is the result of shareholder pressure. Barrie Stead, a retired solicitor, became concerned about the way companies were behaving back in 2011, and started to attend annual general meetings to ask whether they would adopt the living wage. “I’ve always had a chance to ask my question and been listened to respectfully,” he says. “I always say I’ll be back next year to see what progress has been made.” Sometimes he finds he has allies at the top. One director thanked him for raising the issue, as he had been arguing the case at his firm for three years but the board had not listened.
这些变化有些是来自股东方压力促成的结果。一个名叫Barrie Stead 的退休了的律师，从2011年开始就关注公司行为，开始出席年度全体大会并询问他们是否接受生活工资的做法。“我经常有机会问出我的问题，并且大家都很尊重地听我说”，他说，“我经常说，我明年还会来，看看有什么进展没有”。有时，他能够获得高层的支持。一个董事为他提出这个问题表示感谢，并且他在公司已经三年提及这件事，只是董事会还没有听取。
Mr Stead claims success at Legal & General, an insurance group, which adopted the idea in 2013 after his questioning; now he wants the group, one of Britain’s biggest shareholders, to lobby for the wage to be adopted by the companies it invests in.
Stead 先生声称，他在法通保险公司（一个保险集团公司）获得了成功，后者听了他的询问后，在2013年采用了这个观点；现在他希望这个英国最大股东之一的集团公司能够说服他投资的那些公司也采用这个工资概念。
Hermes is an investment manager with rather more clout than Mr Stead. It manages ￡27.4 billion of assets and lobbies for companies to adopt the living wage. Saker Nusseibeh, its chief executive, says businesses need to have a purpose on top of simply making money. And, he says, treating the workers well can be good for the company. “Paternalistic companies like the Quaker groups of Cadbury and Fry survived and prospered in the 19th century by treating their workers well.”
Hermes是一个比Stead先生影响力大得多的投资经理。他管理着274亿英镑的资产，游说公司接受生活工资。其首席执行官，Saker Nusseibeh， 说做生意应该有一个比仅仅赚钱更高的目标。而且对雇员好一些也对公司有好处，他说。“19世纪，一些家长式公司如Cadbury 和Fry 的Quaker集团也得以存续和繁荣，靠的就是对雇员好。”
This is a key part of the campaigners’ argument. They say workers who are paid the living wage have better morale, making them more loyal and more productive. Barclays, a bank, found that its catering-staff retention increased from 54% to 77% following the introduction of the living wage, and its retention rate for cleaning staff rose from 35% to 92%.
这也是战士们观点的重要部分。他们说，支付给雇员们生活工资，他们将有更好的风貌，而且他们将更加忠诚，工作更有效率。一个名为巴克莱的银行发现，引入生活工资之后，它的餐饮负责人员的留职率从54%升至77%，清洁工的则从35%提升至92%。
KPMG, an accountancy firm, first adopted the concept in 2006 for its catering, cleaning and postroom staff; it says the annual costs of providing such services are ￡1m a year below the level when the project started. Higher wages were offset by reductions in recruitment costs, increased skills and productivity. Just paying higher wages is not enough, though; the nature of the job needs to change as well. “It is …good job design that brings dignity and meaning to work” says Zeynep Ton, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “When you design the work to ensure employees can be truly productive, customer service is better.”
毕马威，一个会计公司，在2006年第一个为它的餐饮负责人员、清洁工以及收发室员工引入这个概念；它说，提供这些服务的年成本比项目开始时减少了100万英镑。更高的工资支出被招聘成本的减少、更熟练的技能以及更高的生产率所抵消。但仅仅支付高工资也是不够的，工作的性质也必须改变。“好的工作设计包含尊严和工作意义”，麻省理工学院教授 Zeynep Ton 说。“当你设计的工作能够确保雇员真正富有效率，那么客户服务也会随之更好”。
Clearly, it is reasonably easy for companies to adopt the living wage if they have high margins and a low headcount; it will be more difficult for businesses with low margins and a large numbers of workers, such as supermarkets. Still, the idea is gaining ground.
显然，有高利润和少编制的公司，较易接受生活工资；低利润和雇员众多的公司（如超市）可能更难一些。但仍然，这个理念正在逐步普及。
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