公司为何要对薪水保密?

If 'Jackass 3D' is anything like prior triumphs in the franchise, its band of raunchy, anarchic daredevils will make high art of low humor and leave no mishap private - especially if it involves someone's privates. But just try to get Johnny Knoxville and his gang to talk about how much each is paid. In America, money is the last conversational taboo.

That's probably a good thing for workplace morale. A new study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Princeton University suggests that if all of our salaries were made known tomorrow, half of us would be made miserable and the other half would be made no happier.

That's more or less what happened at the University of California. Faculty and staff there are on the state's payroll. The passage in California of a right-to-know law in March 2008 enabled the Sacramento Bee to publish state worker salaries on its web site. Authors of the aforementioned study, now circulating as a working paper, contacted a random set of workers at three UC campuses and informed them of the web site. A few days later, they surveyed all campus employees on how they used the Bee's site, on their satisfaction with their job and pay and on whether they had job search intentions.

The findings: Usage of the site spread quickly, and 80% of new users said they looked up salary details on colleagues in their department. Among workers whose pay was below the median for their department, job satisfaction plunged and likelihood of searching for a new job increased. Interestingly, among those who were paid above the median, there was no meaningful change.

The findings fit neatly with something called the inequality aversion theory, proposed in 1999 by researchers in Zurich and Munich. In experiments, human subjects proved willing to sacrifice potential rewards if they could block others from receiving superior rewards. In other words, subjects in many cases cared more about fairness than gain. (A 2003 study involving monkeys showed similar behavior - and a bit of monkey rage displayed toward scientists who created the conditions.)

The University of California finding suggests employers have more to lose than to gain from publicizing salaries. Inexpensive workers might leave and costly ones aren't made more loyal.

That explains why some employers tuck secrecy clauses into their new hire contracts. Such clauses are losing their teeth, however. In the U.S., several states ban them, and in ones that don't, court decisions suggest enforcement is made difficult if not impossible by Section 7 of the National Labor Rights Act, which protects workers who engage in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection. In the U.K. as of Oct. 1, the Equality Act 2010 bans enforcement in cases where workers are trying to determine whether they're being discriminated against - something employers would find difficult to disprove.

As for workers, many of whom seem all too keen to share gritty personal details with colleagues, maybe it's time to dish about pay. Half will leave the conversation frowning, but if dissatisfaction is a motivator, they'll end up better off.如果说3D版《蠢蛋搞怪秀3》与前两部成功的系列片有相似之处的话，那就是这伙恶俗的、无法无天的搞怪者会以高雅的艺术来表现低俗的幽默方式，将所有的灾祸都公之于众，特别是如果涉及到某人的隐私。但如果想让诺克斯维尔（Johnny Knoxville）和他的剧组谈谈每个人的薪水，你一定会碰壁。在美国，钱是谈话中的最后一个禁忌。

这可能对工作环境的士气来说是件好事。加州大学伯克利分校（University of California at Berkeley）及普林斯顿大学（Princeton University）的一个新研究显示，如果明天我们所有人的薪水都公之于众，一半人会很悲惨，另一半人也不会更高兴。

加州大学的情况差不多就是这样。教师和员工都在州政府的花名册上。加利福尼亚州2008年3月通过的一项知情权法规让当地报纸《Sacramento Bee》在其网站公布加州工作人员的薪水。上述的新研究已发布成为研究报告。作者随意联系了三所加州大学分校的一些员工，并告知他们这个网站的信息。几天后，他们对学校所有员工就如何使用该网站、对工作和薪水的满意度以及是否有找新工作的打算进行了调查。

结果是：越来越多的人迅速开始使用该网站，80%的新用户说他们查过所在部门同事的薪水详情。薪水低于部门中间值的员工工作满意度迅速下跌，而找新工作的可能性增加了。有趣的是，薪水高于部门中间值的人没什么有意义的变化。

这恰巧映证了1999年由苏黎世和慕尼黑研究人员提出的“不平等厌恶理论”（inequality aversion theory）。实验证明，实验对象如果能阻止其他人接受比他更优越的奖励，他就愿意牺牲潜在的奖励。也就是说，实验对象在很多情况下更在意公平性，而不是获得多少。（2003年的一个关于猴子的研究也显示了相同行为，猴子还对造成这种情况的科学家表示了愤怒。）

加州大学的研究结果表明，对雇主来说，公开薪水的结果是失大于得。薪水低的员工可能会离开，薪水高的员工不会更忠于公司。

这就解释了为什么有些雇主会在新员工合同中塞进保密条款。但是这种条款的地位正在动摇。美国有些州不允许这样的条款，在允许的州省，《国家劳动权益法案》（National Labor Rights Act）第七部分规定对采取一致行动争取共同帮助和保护的员工进行保护，法庭的判决表明，该规定使得上述条款的实施十分困难。在英国，从10月1日起，《2010年平等法案》（Equality Act 2010）规定，在员工试图判定他们是否被歧视（雇主通常都很难反驳）的情况下，这些条款禁止实施。

对员工来说，很多人似乎太过热情地与同事分享自己的倒霉事，也许到了谈谈薪水的时候了。一半人听了之后会紧皱眉头地走开，但如果不满能成为一个激励因素的话，他们最终可能会有更好的表现。