世界节假日博览 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.
美国同工同酬日是让人们认识到在同等工作内容下，男性工资要高于女性。之所以设立在4月15日是因为，女性必须要工作到这一天才能赶上男性上一年的工资。2008年的数据表明，女性的平均工资为男同事的77.8%。亚裔女性情况稍好。对于非洲和西班牙裔女性来讲，数据更低。尽管美国于1963年通过了《平等工资法案》，但美国的不平等现象依然存在。许多女性认为这样的平等极为不公，有数据表明，美国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，数千名商界和职场女性，数百家民权和劳工组织会参加同酬活动。他们在全美举办活动要求平等待遇。许多活动都是与国家同酬委员会合办，并于1996年起开展“同工同酬日”。妇女工会联盟的欧拉·塔特认为，平等工资不只是女性问题。如果女性在应该获得1美元的情况下获得了77美分，那么她们的家庭会遭受痛苦。由于待遇不公，每年他们将会损失2千亿美元收入。在这一天，活动人士会佩戴红丝带，表达女性和少数民族员工入不敷出的艰苦状况。