新聞翻譯 - TIME - The ‘World’s Longest Labor Strike’ Ends in a Whimper

The ‘World’s Longest Labor Strike’ Ends in a Whimper

世上最長的勞工抗議在嗚咽中結束

On Fathers Day 2003, all of the 130 workers at the Congress Hotel in Chicago walked out on the job, protesting management’s decision to cut wages and bring in minimum-wage, subcontracted workers.

2003年的父親節，因管理層決定減薪並引進最低薪的外包員工，芝加哥國會酒店的130位員工罷工。

Ten years later, the union — United Here’s Local 1 — is giving up its fight, and not because management gave in to any of the union’s demands. It simply decided that the fight had gone on long enough, and that its resources and attention would be better spent elsewhere. “The decision to end the Congress strike was a hard one, but it is the right time for the Union and the strikers to move on,” said Local 1 President Henry Tamarin. “The boycott has effectively dramatically reduced the hotel’s business. The hotel treats their workers and customers equally poor and the community knows it. There is no more to do there.”

十年後，工會放棄了，不是因為管理層給予了工會的要求，而是因為實在鬥爭的太久了，資源與關注若放在其他地方會更有用。 「結束國會抗議是個困難的決定，但是時候工會與抗議者向前看了。」，本地一號總裁Henry Tamarin說：「聯合抵制已經有效且戲劇化地削弱了飯店的營運。」 飯店對待員工跟客人一樣差，而社會已經知道了，已經沒有什麼我們能做的了。

Of course, the point of a strike isn’t just to hurt the employer’s business, it’s to improve pay and working conditions for employees. And after a staggeringly long strike, which United Here claims is the “worlds longest,” they came up empty handed. The significance of this particular loss for labor is probably not all that great in the grand scheme of things. These are just 130 workers, and sometimes management will resist demands even if strikers are able to hurt business significantly.

當然了，抗議的目的並不是為了傷害雇主的企業，而是為了增進薪水與工作條件，經過了這工會聲稱是他們徒手興起，世上最長的抗議後，其工人損失的意涵在這宏偉計畫中恐怕不是好事。 他們只是130個工人，而且有些時候就算罷工能夠對企業造成值得注目的傷害，管理層還是會拒絕其要求。

But the United Here’s loss in this battle is symbolic of more than just one unsuccessful strike. During the 2008 primary, when organized labor split its support between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, United Here was the first union to back Obama. As a Senator in 2007, Obama even picketed with Strike First outside the Congress Hotel, in solidarity with striking workers. And when President Obama was first elected in 2008, the labor movement was optimistic that it would finally have the support it needed in Washington to reverse decades of decline in the power of private sector unions. According to Randy Shaw, an attorney and labor activist, President Obama’s background as a community organizer and large Democratic majorities in Congress made the labor movement giddy that things would finally begin to reverse course.

但工會在這場鬥爭中的損失，更是其他更多失敗抗議的象徵。 在2008年選舉，當工人組織分成兩邊各支持Hilary Clinton與 Barack Obama，工會是第一個支持Obama的；當2007年，Obama還是參議員時，他甚至護衛了在國會酒店外的抗議人潮，與抗議勞工團結一致，而當Obama總統第一次於2008年參選時，勞工方是樂觀的，因為終於在華盛頓有了需要的力量去逆轉私營部門工會力量的衰弱。 根據勞工活動家同時也是律師的Randy Shaw所言，總統Obama身為社群組織者和國會多數民主黨，讓勞工運動對事情會展開逆轉感到頭暈。

But that optimism turned out to be unfounded. The signature piece of legislation, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, that Democrats pushed in one form or another from 2006 through 2010 would have required businesses to recognize a union immediately once 50% or more workers had signed a card saying they supported it. (Under current law, businesses often have many months to mount an anti-unionization campaign after a majority of workers have declared they want a union, and before a secret ballot of workers has the final say.) The bill would also have established a binding arbitration process for unions and businesses that can’t agree on a contract, and it would have increased penalties for businesses that violate labor law.

那樂觀最後證明是毫無根據的，民主黨從2006年到2010年再數個改革中所提出”雇員自由選擇法案”，將要求企業一旦超過50%的勞工在卡上簽名表明支持時，必須馬上承認一個工會。(現在的法律，在多數員工宣稱他們想要一個工會或員工的不記名投票做出抉擇前。，企業常常有許多個月可以進行反工會活動，) 該法案也對不同意合約的工會與企業創建了具約束力的仲裁程序，且會增加違反勞工法的企業懲處。

But fierce Republican opposition and the twin priorities of passing stimulus and healthcare legislation sank the reform effort before it could get off the ground. “I don’t think the movement anticipated how difficult it would be to pass labor law reform,” Shaw says. “There was a general overconfidence, and there was never a move to get something passed short of the ideal, so in the end, nothing got passed.”

但共和黨激烈反對且健保法規將會在起步時擊沉改革的付出。 「我不認為運動會預期到通過勞工法改革會有多困難」她說。 太多大眾自信可以，且從來沒有任何動作讓它更加完善，所以，到最後沒有什麼可以通過。

Following the election of Scott Brown in 2010, the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate, and their ability to pass much of anything at all — let alone anything as despised by Republicans as labor law reform. And unions have been public enemy number one for many on the right in recent years. Political figures like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker have made major strides in curbing the power of public unions, and Republicans in Washington have done their best to hobble the National Labor Relations Board — which has been without five confirmed members since 2003.

來看Scott Brown於2010的競選，民主黨失去了在參議院的絕對多數權、簡直能通過大部份法案的權力、更不用說像被共和黨鄙視的勞工法改革，而工會更是近年來右派的頭號公敵。 像威斯康辛州長Scott Walker的政治人物在遏止工會力量上可說有重大進展，共和黨也在華盛頓盡全力拖延從2003年就缺少五位確定成員的國家勞工關係委員會。

All of this activity leaves the labor movement, and those pushing for the rights of workers and the poor, at a crossroads. In an effort to raise the living standards of the poor and middle class, the left has used both indirect government support (through laws that allow and even encourage unionization) and direct government support (through programs like Social Security and welfare). And for most of the 20th century, this two-pronged approach worked fairly well. Despite all the changes that occured in the U.S. economy, the share of company profits that go to workers (versus owners) remained steady at roughly 66%. But for the past decade, the ownership class has been taking more and more of the pie. This dynamic shows itself in stagnant wage growth, a problem that has been plaguing America since the 1980s.

全部的動作讓勞工活動與那些爭取勞工與窮人權力的人處於一個十字路口，左派為了提高窮人與中產階級的生活水準，他們使用了間接政府支持(藉由法律與提倡工會化)與直接政府支持(藉由社會福利保障)，而在20世紀，這雙管齊下的方法出奇的好，雖然在美國經濟上發生了一些改變，但大約66%的公司獲利到員工身上。 但過去十年裡，有產階級不斷鯨吞獲利，這浮動數據本身表現了薪水成長的停滯，一個從1980年代便不斷困擾美國的問題。

Ironically, it may very well be the relative strength of today’s welfare programs that is undermining the urgency of a strong labor movement. The labor movement’s greatest successes have often come during very dire economic times. The height of the movement’s power was during the Great Depression, when it’s estimated that more than 25% of the labor force was out of work and, unlike today, there were no programs like food stamps or temporary federal welfare and very little in the way of unemployment insurance. For workers in the early part of the 20th century, the decision was either to organize or face dire poverty.

諷刺的是，這很可能助長了破壞勞工運動急迫性的現代福利制度。 勞工運動最偉大的成功總出現在悲慘的經濟體中，勞工運動的最強力量總在大衰退時，當時估計有25%的勞工罷工，不像現代，那時沒有糧票或臨時聯邦福利，且幾乎沒有失業保險，對二十世紀早期的勞工，那是組織對抗或面對悲慘貧困的抉擇。




Today, it’s a different story. Federal and state governments spend more than $1 trillion annually on welfare programs, from the earned income tax credit to food stamps, to improve the lives of the working poor. And so while the labor movement has been very eager to support a robust welfare state, it may one of the factors that has made joining a union less appealing for much of the working class.



現代則完全不一樣，聯邦與州政府每年在糧票上花超過一兆稅收，增進勞工與窮人的生活，且勞工運動熱切的支持有良好福利制度的洲，這或許是其中一個因素導致加入公會不怎麼吸引勞工。