評論
打印
Britain
英國
Three-Day Weekends: Thank God it's Thursday
三天周末：謝天謝地，終于星期四了
A shorter working week sounds appealing, but could be costly.
更短的工作周聽起來很美好，但是可能會花費巨大。
With the prospect of Easter and two bank holidays on the horizon, Britons have an embarrassment of long weekends to savour.
隨著復活節和周末的接踵而至，英國人可以盡情享受一個長長的假期，但是這種長假期往往使得政府感到為難。
For Caroline Lucas, the joint leader of the Green Party, that is not enough: she wants three-day weekends every week.
對于綠黨的主要領導人Caroline Lucas來說，這遠遠不夠：她想每周有三天假期。
On March 31st she announced at her party's conference that the Greens were exploring such a policy, which could go in their manifesto in 2020.
3月31日她在綠黨的會議上宣布，綠黨一直在探討，研究這樣的政策，大概在2020年能夠成為綠黨的競選綱領。
The Greens reckon that lopping a day off the working week would begin to redress the inequalities between men and women, since both paid and unpaid work might then be shared more evenly.
綠黨認為，調減工作日將會開始調整男性與女性之間的不平等，因為女性上班和做家務的時間將會變得更加平衡。
People could do more of what they love (assuming that excludes their jobs) and would be less stressed.
同時人們可以做更多他們喜歡的事情（假設其中不包括他們的工作），并且壓力也會減少很多。
It would reduce Britain's carbon footprint.
調減工作日也將會降低英國的碳排放量。
And it could even boost the country's productivity.
而且甚至會推動國家的生產率。
Some evidence supports this.
一些證據印證了這一想法。
A paper published in 2014 by John Pencavel of Stanford University, looking at first-world-war munitions workers, shows that reducing working hours can be good for productivity.
來自斯坦福大學的John Pencavel于2014年發表的一篇論文表明：對一戰時期生產軍需品的工人數據分析得知，減少工作時間能提高生產效率。
Between 2007 and 2011 the American state of Utah adjusted the working week for state employees, with longer days from Monday to Thursday, and Friday off.
在2007年到2011年美國猶他州將政府雇員的工作日調整為周一到周四，但是每日的工作時長會增加。
In ten months the shift saved the state $1.8m in energy costs.
這樣的改變持續了10個月后，猶他州因此節省了一百八十萬美元的能源費用。
But the Greens would go further than simply redistributing working hours over four days: they suggest that people could work fewer hours overall.
但是綠黨想做的并不是像猶他州一樣僅僅將5天的工作時間重新分配在4天里，而是建議人們可以真正的縮減自己一周的工作時間。
Since not everyone can afford to take a 20% pay cut, “wages must go up correspondingly” —courtesy of employers and the state— “to ensure no one loses out”.
“如果雇主和政府愿意的話，工資應該相應的增加，確保每個人都不會虧損”，因為不是所有人都能接受由于多放一天假而導致工薪縮減20%的事情。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
