世界節(jié)假日博覽 第68期:同工同酬日

Equal Pay Day is an American day of awareness to highlight the fact that American men earn more than women for doing the same jobs. It is held on April 15 because this is how far into a new year that a woman must work to earn what a man earned in the previous year. Statistics released in 2008 showed that women earned on average 77.8 percent of their male colleagues' earnings. Asian American women did a little better than this. For African American and Hispanic women, the figure was lower. This is happening in America today, even though equal pay was passed into law in 1963. Many women see the equality as doubly unfair because statistics also show that American women are better educated than men.
美國同工同酬日是讓人們認識到在同等工作內(nèi)容下，男性工資要高于女性。之所以設立在4月15日是因為，女性必須要工作到這一天才能趕上男性上一年的工資。2008年的數(shù)據(jù)表明，女性的平均工資為男同事的77.8%。亞裔女性情況稍好。對于非洲和西班牙裔女性來講，數(shù)據(jù)更低。盡管美國于1963年通過了《平等工資法案》，但美國的不平等現(xiàn)象依然存在。許多女性認為這樣的平等極為不公，有數(shù)據(jù)表明，美國女性的受教育程度要高于男性。


On Equal Pay Day, thousands of business and professional women and hundreds of civil rights and labour organizations take part in fair pay campaigns. They hold events across America demanding a fair wage. A lot of the campaigning is coordinated by the National Committee on Pay Equity, which started Equal Pay Day in 1996. Eula Tate of the Coalition of Labor Union Women says equal pay is not just a woman's issue. If women are only paid 77 cents when they should get a dollar, their family suffers. Working families lose about $200 billion in income every year because of this pay discrimination, she said. Campaigners usually wear red ribbons on this day as a symbol of how women and minorities are “in the red” with their pay.
在同工同酬日，數(shù)千名商界和職場女性，數(shù)百家民權和勞工組織會參加同酬活動。他們在全美舉辦活動要求平等待遇。許多活動都是與國家同酬委員會合辦，并于1996年起開展“同工同酬日”。婦女工會聯(lián)盟的歐拉·塔特認為，平等工資不只是女性問題。如果女性在應該獲得1美元的情況下獲得了77美分，那么她們的家庭會遭受痛苦。由于待遇不公，每年他們將會損失2千億美元收入。在這一天，活動人士會佩戴紅絲帶，表達女性和少數(shù)民族員工入不敷出的艱苦狀況。