The Living Wage: Advancing a Global Movement, TonyDobbins and Peter Prowse (eds), Routledge, 2022. 216 pp, ISBN 978‐0‐367‐51487‐7, £32,00.
本书汇集国际专家观点，探讨生活工资运动面临的复杂挑战，如全球劳动力市场不稳定、在业贫困、工会影响力下降等，对学者和政策制定者理解生活工资与最低工资的区别及其实践有参考价值。
The Living Wage is a comprehensive and timely insight into the debates and complex challenges around the living wage movement, specifically concerning a real living wage in all parts of the world.A real living wage can be understood as a rate of pay that often goes above minimum wages set by government to ensure that all employees are remunerated sufficiently to cover their living costs.This edited collection addresses some of the fundamental intricacies faced by the living wage movement, for example, the interaction with an increasingly precarious global labour market, in-work poverty, the declining influence of trade unions and discrepancies between policy and practice among various living wage initiatives in a multitude of contexts.Contributions made to the book come from a range of international experts in the fields of work and employment relations and other relevant disciplines, such as, policy and politics.The approach adopted to debates around the real living wage is broad and holistic making it useful for scholarly understanding, as well, being a valuable platform for public policy makers.Critical insight into the living wage is crucial at a time of increasing inequalities and the way they are interconnected with precarious labour markets.As demonstrated in the contributions made in the book, for many employees, work alone is no longer enough to provide an appropriate standard of living.The opening chapter by Prowse and Dobbins contextualises this edited collection by outlining the history of living wages and defining the key distinctions between living wages and minimum wages.Following this, the collection is then divided into two parts, consisting of 15 chapters, along with a concluding chapter.The first part specifically examines the voluntary real living wage.The contributions explore a range of sectors and the individuals that are involved and affected, for example, workers, employers and trade unions.The second part of the book examines an international comparative context, exploring the way selected countries and regions have developed real living wage policies and the way they can be compared and contrasted to the UK.The book finishes with a conclusion by Dobbins and Prowse summarising the key takeaways of the book, such as, the challenges brought about by neoliberalism, the role of collectivism and trade unions and the significance of the 'social contract' for decent work.In terms of the UK situation, in part 1 chapter 2, Howard draws out the history and implementation of the Living Wage campaign.He also critically examines some of the parallel challenges of living wages, for example, those of job insecurity and underemployment, which have resulted in the need for initiatives like Living Hours to complement strategies around wages.