评论
打印
Sheffield city council is facing thousands of equal pay claims from women who were allegedly paid up to 11,000 pounds a year less than men.
谢菲尔德市议会面临着数千名女性提出的同工同酬要求。据称这些女性的年薪比男性少1.1万英镑。
There are disputes in councils from Coventry to Fife; the GMB alone, one of the main public sector unions, is gathering evidence in 20 different local authorities.
从考文垂市到法夫市的议会中都存在争议；仅主要公共部门工会之一的GMB工会就在20个不同的地方政府收集着证据。
But working out what women are owed, and finding the money to pay them, is far from straightforward.
但计算出应该偿还给女性的薪资，并找到支付给她们的薪水，这远不是一件简单的事情。
Councils around the country are beset by financial problems stemming from funding cuts imposed by Conservative-led governments since 2010.
自2010年以来，由于保守党领导的政府强制削减资金，英国各地的议会都受到财务问题的困扰。
Central government grants to local councils were cut by 40% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20, at the same time as demand for services like child social care increased.
在2009/10至2019/20年度期间，中央政府对地方议会的拨款实际减少了40%，与此同时，对儿童社会福利等服务的需求却增加了。
(In 2012, two years into austerity, a graph called the “jaws of doom” did the rounds at councils, one line showing steeply rising demand and another showing crashing funds.)
(2012年，也就是紧缩政策实施的第2年，一张名为“jaws of doom”的图表在议会中流传，一条线显示需求急剧上升，另一条线显示资金崩溃。)
Deprived areas were worst affected, because they received less money from council tax and relied more on this grant funding.
贫困地区受到的影响最严重，因为他们从市政税中获得的资金更少，更多地依赖于这笔拨款。
The impact of these cuts is visible every day across Britain: in the loss of libraries, swimming pools and children’s centres, in deteriorating conditions in parks and other public spaces, in overwhelmed social care services.
这些资金削减的影响在英国每天都可见：图书馆、游泳池和儿童中心的减少，公园和其他公共场所的条件恶化，社会护理服务不堪重负。
After 14 years of this drastically reduced funding, one in five councils now believes it is “fairly or very likely” they will become insolvent in the next 18 months.
在经历了14年的资金大幅减少后，现在有五分之一的地方议会认为，他们“相当或非常有可能”在未来18个月内破产。
All this makes local authorities particularly badly placed to deal with this new wave of equal pay claims.
所有这些都使得地方政府在处理新一波同工同酬要求方面处于特别不利的地位。
“In my view it’s a matter of when, not if, more councils go bankrupt,” a policy adviser from the Local Government Association told me.
地方政府协会的一位政策顾问告诉我：“在我看来，这是一个何时有更多议会破产的问题，而不是会不会有更多议会破产的问题。”
“It’s a timebomb – and no one got out ahead of it.”
“这是一枚定时炸弹--没有人在它爆炸之前逃出来。”
Amid this web of financial challenges, councils are facing up to the uncomfortable truth that for many years, the books have been balanced on the backs of women.
在这种财政挑战的网络中，地方议会正面对一个令人不安的事实：多年来，账面平衡一直借助于女性来实现。
Stojilkovic never imagined she would end up leading a protest movement.
斯托吉尔科维奇从未想过她最终会领导一场抗议运动。
She was born Frances Mowat, and grew up in the Gorbals, a deprived area of Glasgow.
她原名弗朗西丝·莫瓦特，在格拉斯哥市的贫民区戈尔巴尔斯长大。
Her parents split up when she was one, and her mum brought up seven children alone, working long hours as a bus conductor.
她的父母在她一岁的时候就离婚了，她的母亲独自抚养了七个孩子，加班加点干着公交车售票员的工作。
Stojilkovic hated school and, after leaving at 16 with no qualifications, she got a job at the high court, where she served lunch to the judges and jury.
斯托吉尔科维奇讨厌学校，16岁离校时没有拿到学历，她在高等法院找到了一份工作。她在高等法院为法官和陪审团提供午餐。
She stayed there for 12 years – during which time she met her husband, Colin Stojilkovic, and had two daughters – before going back to college to study catering.
她在这里呆了12年--在此期间，她遇到了丈夫科林·斯托吉尔科维奇，他们俩人育有两个女儿--后来她回到大学学习餐饮。
For a few years, she ran a cafe with her sister, and when that shut down, she worked in her brother-in-law’s restaurant, before she fell out with him. (“I told him where to go,” she said.)
有几年，她和姐姐开了一家咖啡馆。当咖啡馆关店时，她就在姐夫的餐厅工作，后来她和他闹翻了。(她说：“我告诉他该去哪里。”)
