经济学人下载:自助,我的远大前程

What about the people who do not command any kind of premium in the marketplace? One strategy could be to find a high-flyer and stick close. Even if joining their posse is out of reach, there are still horses to be fed and watered. The time-poor new rich are generating demand for household staff, and this sort of work can be very well paid. A private secretary and general factotum can earn up to $150,000 a year nowadays. Salaries for standard butlers range from $60,000 to $125,000 and a head butler can make as much as $250,000, according to the website of the Butler Bureau.

对于在市场上没有任何优势的人怎么办？一个策略就是找到一个有大抱负的人并紧密跟随，即使加入这类人的小团体很困难，但他们总有日常琐事要处理。时间宝贵的新贵需要家务助理，而且这类工作薪水还可能很高。一个私人秘书兼家务总管现在年薪可达15万美元；根据管家办公室的网站，普通管家的薪水在6万到12.5万美金，而总管家的年薪则可能多至25万美元。

As more and more people live to a ripe old age, demand for home-care workers is likely to soar. America will need 2m more of them in the next decade alone, says Ai-Jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, an organisation that represents those who work in other people’s homes. But there are winners and losers even among domestic workers. As Ms Poo points out, many of them are badly paid, get little or no time off and are vulnerable to injury because they have had no proper training for lifting immobile people. A high proportion of them are illegal immigrants who have no come-back against ill-treatment. Unless the pay and training of home-care workers are improved, observes Ms Poo, ageing baby-boomers may have trouble finding competent people to look after them in their dotage.

随着越来越多的人步入老年，家庭护工的需求可能会急剧增长。全国住家工人联盟的朴爱珍认为，接下来十年美国可能会需要超过200万的家庭护工。朴女士指出，大部分家庭护工薪水都很差、没有休假而且对伤病很脆弱，这是因为他们没有接受移动残疾人士的合适训练，他们大部分都是对虐待没有退路的非法移民。朴女士观察指出，如果这些护工的报酬和培训得不到提高，不断老去的婴儿潮一代将会发现他们找不到能干的人来照料自己。

The traditional way for workers to protect themselves against exploitation has been to club together to form a trade union. In rich countries unions have been in decline in the private sector, but they remain powerful in the public sector and there are pockets of growth among people in vulnerable occupations. The National Domestic Workers Alliance, which was formed only four years ago, has already got the state of New York to adopt America’s first bill of rights for people working in family homes, guaranteeing overtime pay, protection from discrimination and harassment, a minimum of one day’s rest a week and a minimum of three days’ paid leave a year—not much, but better than nothing. Similar legislation is being debated in California.

工人保护自己免受剥削的传统方法是形成工会，富裕国家的工会在私人部门不断衰落，但在公共部门却始终强势，而且对于弱势行业的工人来说工会还有很大发展空间。全国住家工人联合会成立仅有4年，但已经成功地让纽约对住家工人施行了美国第一权利法案，保证加班工作、免受歧视和骚扰、每周至少一天休假以及一年至少3天的带薪假期——这些权利不多，但有总比没有好，同样的法案在加州也正在讨论中。

America’s Freelancers Union has also been growing rapidly. Set up in 1995, it now has 150,000 members and expects to add a further 100,000 in the next 18 months. It is very different from a traditional trade union in that it does not engage in collective bargaining with its members’ widely dispersed employers. Instead, it uses its members’ combined buying muscle to negotiate better terms for things like health care and pensions. It also runs fitness centres. In Britain, the Professional Contractors Group does something similar. ODesk has also negotiated benefits packages for contractors using its site.

成立于1995年的美国自由职业联盟也在快速成长，现在有15万会员，未来18个月预计会再增加10万会员。该联盟并不致力于和其会员分散四处的雇主统一谈判，这一点和传统的工会不同；联盟用会员的联合购买力量在其他事项方面谈判出更好的条件，比如医疗保健和养老金方面；联盟还有健身中心。在英国，职业承包商团体也做类似的事情。Odesk（一个外包商网站）用他们的网站为承包商们谈判到了一揽子福利。

This may be the start of a “new mutualism movement” that will be very different from traditional trade unionism, says Sara Horowitz, the Freelancers Union’s founder. “If work is going to be more gig-like and short-term, the supportive safety-net institutions will need to be much more about enabling flexibility in the workforce.” This new movement will bring together mutual organisations, co-operatives, friendly societies and social-enterprise start-ups to build a “marketbased safety net” and exercise political influence to get better protection for members. It will get its power from information and aggregation. For example, the Freelancers Union is currently developing a “crowdsourced” system for rating employers on how promptly they pay contractors.

自由职业联盟创始人的萨拉.霍洛维茨说，这可能是不同于传统工会的“共生运动”的开始，“如果工作变得更加轻便和短期化，那么作为安全网的支持性机构也应该给工人们多些灵活性”。这种新运动可能会带来更多共生的合作组织、互助会和初创社会企业，由此建立起一个“基于市场的安全网”并施加政治影响为会员争取更多的保护，这类组织会从信息和集聚中获得力量。比如，自由职业联盟现在就在建立了一个“crowdsourced”系统，用来给雇主打分，评判他们是否合理地支付了承包商。