【英语生活】好工作不仅在于薪水 It takes more than $10 an hour to make a good employer

Digital data management systems are useful for retailers such as Walmart, which this month an-nounced that by 2016 it is raising its minimum hourly rate in the US to $10. Sophisticated new software that captures real-time sales patterns and other data means companies can deploy more staff at short notice, or send them home when restaurants or stores are empty. Workers are often sent packing mid-shift or called in early. It saves costs for employers and ultimately shareholders.

It is also a nightmare for many low-wage workers, among whose ranks I worked for more than a decade, mostly in food service. Software does not take into account the shifting nature of human lives. Nor can it deal with unexpected events such as a sick child.

Quality of life is about more than the size of your pay cheque. It means being able to spend an evening with your family once a week — instead of keeping one parent at home with the kids while the other works, and then exchanging a few words when you switch roles halfway through the day. It means being able to request working hours that allow you to travel when buses are running so you do not have to walk miles to get to work.

Those things matter to workers. When someone on a low wage talks about finding a better job, better pay is just part of the mix. This is why campaigns groups across America are trying to win better conditions — enabling employees to address questions of health, safety and life quality, alongside their wage gains.

Short-notice rotas, as much as low pay or unsafe conditions, are central to a spate of protests across the US. Starbucks, for example, was held up to scrutiny when a New York Times feature in August showed how hard it was for a single mother to keep her job, stay in education and sort out childcare while also working unpredictable hours.

Commentators and policy makers have focused on the consequences of Walmart’s decision to increase wages. These may make a difference to the macroeconomic statistics that are most widely followed as measures of the economy’s health.

For many workers, however, the most significant part of the announcement was not the loudly trumpeted but marginal pay rise. Rather, it was a series of significant policy shifts that will have a big effect on quality of life. Most important was a promise that work schedules will be available two-and-a-half weeks in advance. This is a significant gain for staff. Walmart has said that the entire initiative will be in full effect in 2016.

Similarly overlooked in the Walmart announcement is a commitment to management retraining. Most low-wage workers will agree that this is long overdue. Every low-wage employee has run up against incompetent or petty managers. But some will remain sceptical; this particular company has long faced complaints that its culture is unfriendly to employees.

Walmart’s decision to make positive moves with its $1bn overhaul is welcome, not least to taxpayers who in effect subsidise its wages with welfare subsidies which, by some accounts, add up to over $6bn a year. Any raise is significant at these wage levels, but $10 per hour is still a poverty-level wage in many US cities. But it did so under pressure from a tightening labour market and a tide of bad publicity from protesters, its own striking employees and politicians. Even President Barack Obama is on record, in the early days of his career, calling for Walmart “to do better by its workers”.

Big employers in America seem to be realising what is meant by the term “human capital”. Should this trend continue, led by the world’s biggest private sector employer, it is possible that we will start seeing the kinds of stable and dependable jobs that build a strong economy, instead of the efficient but unstable sort that build a strong quarterly report.

The writer is author of ‘Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America’

沃尔玛(Walmart)上月宣布，到2016年要将其在美国的最低时薪提高至10美元。对沃尔玛这样的零售商来说，电子数据管理系统非常有用。复杂的新软件可以捕捉实时销售情况和其它数据，这意味着企业可以临时调配更多员工，或者在餐馆或者门店空闲的时候让他们下班回家。员工经常上班上到一半被打发回家或者提前被叫来上班。这为雇主，而且归根结底也为股东节省了成本。

但这也是很多低薪劳动者的梦魇。我也在这样的低薪岗位上工作了十几年，基本都是在餐饮行业。软件既不会考虑人类生活变化不定的性质，也不会考虑孩子生病等突发状况。

生活质量不仅在于薪水高低。有质量的生活意味着每周能和家人共度一晚——而不是一方在家带孩子，另一方在外工作，然后在中午角色互换时说几句话。有质量的生活还意味着能要求在公交运营时间内上下班，而不必步行几英里去上班。

这些事情对劳动者来说很重要。当一个薪水较低的人谈起找一份更好的工作时，更高的薪资仅仅是部分因素。这就是为什么美国各地的活动团体一直在努力争取更好的工作条件——让雇员在获得涨薪的同时，也能够解决健康、安全和生活质量方面的问题。

临时排班与低薪和不安全的工作条件一样，是美国各地许多抗议活动主要针对的问题。比如，《纽约时报》(New York Times)去年8月的一篇特写报道，讲述了在自己的工作时间无法预测的情况下，一位单身母亲又要工作、又要继续学习、还要照顾孩子是多么艰难，此文让她的雇主星巴克(Starbucks)成为众矢之的。

评论人士以及政策制定者们关注的是沃尔玛涨薪会带来哪些后果。涨薪可能会改变被视为经济健康状况指标而广受关注的宏观经济统计数据。

然而对很多劳动者来说，这份声明最有意义的部分不在于雷声大雨点小的加薪，而在于一系列会有效改善员工生活质量的重大政策转变。其中最重要的是提前两个半星期排出轮班表的承诺。这将让员工受益良多。沃尔玛表示，整个方案将于2016年完全生效。

在沃尔玛的声明中，还有一个同样被忽视的地方，即对管理层进行再培训的承诺。大多数低薪劳动者都会同意这是一项早该实施的措施。每个低薪雇员都遇到过不称职或卑鄙的经理。但有些人仍会抱怀疑态度——沃尔玛是个长期以来一直被抱怨其文化对雇员不友好的企业。

沃尔玛决定采取积极行动，出台这项花费10亿美元的全面整改方案，这值得欢迎。纳税人尤其应对此表示欢迎，他们事实上通过福利补贴为沃尔玛的低薪提供补贴，补贴金额根据一些统计达到每年60亿美元。在这样的薪资水平上，涨一分钱都是有用的，不过10美元的时薪在美国许多城市依然属于贫困水平。沃尔玛是在种种压力下做出这一举动的，劳动力市场趋紧，外部的抗议、内部员工罢工以及政界人士的批评也让其负面新闻缠身。甚至连美国总统巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)也曾在其早期职业生涯中公开呼吁沃尔玛“靠员工来做得更好”。

美国的大型雇主似乎开始意识到“人力资本”这个词的含义。如果在世界最大私营部门雇主的带领下，这样的趋势得以继续发展，我们也许将看到那种能构筑起强大经济的稳定可靠的工作出现，取代那种只能构筑起一张好看季报的高效却不稳定的工作。

作者是《勉强糊口：生活在自食其力的美国》(Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America)一书的作者

译者/许雯佳