面對男女有別的薪酬,或是辦公室中的同工不同酬,我們該怎么辦?美國程序員勞倫•福斯溫克爾認為最簡單的辦法就是工資完全透明。看不見別人的工資條,我們又談何知道自己薪酬過低呢?
For years, Voswinkle had no idea she was being underpaid. A software developer from Pennsylvania, it took her three job switches and several hard negotiations before she landed her current position and an annual salary of $122,000 (about 757,000 yuan), a pay rate she now thinks is comparable to her male coworkers.
過去的很多年里,福斯溫克爾都不曾意識到自己薪酬過低。這位賓夕法尼亞州的軟件開發(fā)者換過三次工作,與老板進行過多次艱難的談判,終于找到了現(xiàn)在這份工作,年薪122,000美元(約合757,000元人民幣)。這樣的報酬在她看來已經與同等職位的男同事不相上下了。
“I just found myself thinking, how long have I been underpaid? How could I have prevented this? What was I missing?”
“我不由自主地在想自己拿過低的薪水有多久了?我本該怎么做才能拿到和大家一樣的薪水?我都錯過了什么呢?”
Voswinkel told The Guardian: “And I realized it was mostly because of a lack of conversation around pay.”
福斯溫克爾在接受英國《衛(wèi)報》采訪時如是說。她還補充道:“我后來意識到其中很大一部分原因是因為缺乏關于薪酬的溝通。”
On May 1, she shared her salary, job title, and professional experience on Twitter. She also created the hashtag #talkpay to encourage others to do the same.
5月1日,福斯溫克爾在推特上曬出了自己的工資、職位以及工作經驗,并且打上了#曬工資#的標簽,希望人們也能像她一樣曬出自己的工資。
In a manifesto she wrote and published on April 28 on tech and culture website ModelViewCulture.com, Voswinkel said she hoped that mass salary disclosures would “break the taboo surrounding salaries, so that people would become more comfortable with discussing pay.”
4月28日,她還在技術、文化網站ModelViewCulture.com發(fā)布了一篇聲明。她在聲明中表示,希望大家都能來曬工資,“打破了不談薪酬的禁忌,以后討論起工資來會更自在”。
Although #talkpay has become a trending topic on social media for the past two weeks, most of the posts using the hashtag were simply taking part in the discussion, and did not reveal actual salaries, according to BuzzFeed.
據美國新聞聚合類網站BuzzFeed報道,過去兩周,雖然#曬工資#一直高居社交媒體話題榜,但是大部分網友只是參與討論,真正曬工資的人卻少之又少。
Wall of silence
沉默之墻
There are major forces at work protecting the trend of silence when it comes to salary transparency, says Emily Dreyfuss at Wired magazine. Beyond the powerful inertia of maintaining the status quo, there is also fear of retribution from current or future employers and of ruining relationships with current co-workers, she says.
來自《連線》雜志的艾米麗•德賴弗斯表示大多數人的沉默是工資透明的主要阻力。而個中緣由,除了因為惰性安于現(xiàn)狀,很多人選擇沉默則是因為擔心被自己現(xiàn)在或未來的上司報復或是損害同事間的關系。
Company policies can make sharing information about salaries difficult, too. According to The Guardian, pay secrecy policies are common in US workplaces, even though they’re often carried out illegally. With “work at will” laws, which allow employees to be fired at any time for any reason, getting sacked for discussing one’s pay is a real threat. That’s why many of the posts with the #talkpay hashtag were cautionary or filled with concern and no salary details. For Voswinkel, that’s a good thing. “There needs to be a degree of risk,” she told The Guardian. “People need to feel that fear to realize just how much these conversations have been repressed by employers.”
公司的各種規(guī)定也讓分享工資信息變成難事。據《衛(wèi)報》報道,工資保密政策在美國公司中十分常見,但它們通常并不合法。美國的勞動法有“任意雇傭原則”,這意味著老板可以隨時以任何理由辭退雇員,比如討論工資,這也成為談論薪酬面臨的真正威脅。因此網上很多人雖然打著#曬工資#的話題發(fā)帖,卻都小心翼翼、滿心擔憂,不愿透露自己工資的細節(jié)。在福斯溫克爾看來,這也不全是壞事,在接受《衛(wèi)報》采訪時,她說:“這種對于風險的普遍認識必不可少,正因如此,人們才能意識到自己在談薪酬方面被老板打壓得有多嚴重。”
According to an April survey by The Washington Post which polled 1,000 full-time workers in the US, nearly 73 percent aren’t comfortable with the idea of discussing their pay with anyone at work other than their boss or the HR department. Only 13 percent said they’d be “completely comfortable” with sharing such information more broadly, recognizing that it might offer workers better leverage in negotiations. The remaining 14 percent said they would be comfortable discussing their salaries only with close colleagues.
4月,《華盛頓郵報》還對1000名美國全職工作人員進行了調查。調查顯示,73%的人不習慣與上司或人力資源部門之外的人談論工資;僅有13%的人認為與他人分享工資信息“毫無壓力”,并將其視為增加薪酬談判的籌碼;剩下的14%則表示,自己僅僅會和關系好的同事聊工資。