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The fight to take the Hill
夺取国会山的战斗
Congressional staffers spend late nights and weekends helping broker deals and write the laws that govern the U.S.
国会工作人员在深夜和周末帮助促成交易，并撰写管理美国的法律。
Many do so on salaries so scant they qualify for the welfare benefits they help legislate.
许多人如此努力工作，工资却很低，他们有资格享有他们帮助设立的法定福利。
And they’re sick of putting up with it.
他们已经受够了。
On a Thursday afternoon in February, 11 Democratic House staffers convened, via Zoom, to discuss their plan to unionize both chambers of Congress for the first time in history.
今年2月的一个周四下午，11名民主党众议院工作人员通过Zoom召开会议，讨论史上首次成立参众两院工会的计划。
The staffers, who represent the still aspirational Congressional Workers Union (CWU), have two goals.
这些工作人员代表着仍然雄心勃勃的国会工人工会(CWU)，他们有两个目标。
The first is to get both the House and Senate to pass resolutions granting them legal protections to unionize.
首先是让众议院和参议院通过决议，为他们组建工会提供法律保护。
The second is to leverage the power unionization would provide to improve their lot.
第二是利用工会的力量来改善他们的命运。
“It’s a privilege to work here,” says one staffer, “but it shouldn’t be a privilege to earn a living wage here.”
“在这里工作是一种特权，”一名员工表示，“但在这里挣到基本生活工资不应该是一种特权。”
A recent analysis of 2020 data by Issue One, a nonprofit political- reform group, showed that 13% of Washingtonbased Congress staffers—roughly 1,200 people—earn less than $42,610 annually.
非营利政治改革组织Issue One最近对2020年数据的分析显示，13%的华盛顿国会工作人员(约1,200人)的年收入不到42,610美元。
That’s the amount, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology living wage calculator, needed to cover bare-minimum essentials like rent and groceries in Washington, D.C., the fifth most expensive city in the nation.
根据麻省理工学院的生活工资计算器，这是华盛顿特区支付房租和杂货等最低生活必需品所需的金额。华盛顿特区是全美生活成本第五高的城市。
Young people who come from working-class families often can’t afford to take such low-paying jobs—which hurts their own careers and exacerbates the lack of low-income and minority representation in Congress.
来自工薪阶层的年轻人不能承受这种低收入的工作，因此会影响他们的职业生涯，也会加剧国会中更加缺乏低收入及少数族裔的代表。
While a handful of Hill staffers have been whispering about unionizing since December 2020, the effort lacked momentum.
自2020年12月以来，尽管少数国会山员工一直在私下讨论成立工会的问题，但这一努力缺乏动力。
That changed in February, when top Democratic leaders, including President Joe Biden’s White House, announced they would, in theory, back a unionized congressional workforce.
这种情况在2月份发生了变化，当时包括总统乔·拜登（Joe Biden）的白宫在内的民主党高层领导人宣布，他们将在理论上支持工会化的国会劳动力。
Within weeks, CWU was flooded with interest from hundreds of staffers.
数百名CWU员工对此充满了兴趣。
“It had been snowballing pretty smoothly,” says one CWU member, “until that week created an avalanche.”
CWU的一名成员说：“在那一周发生雪崩之前，雪球滚得相当顺利。”
But the path forward is hardly easy.
但前进的道路并不容易。
One problem is that CWU members face legal risk.
其中一个问题是工会成员面临法律风险。
While federal labor laws protect most U.S. employees’ labor- organizing activities, Congress exempted itself from its own legislation, leaving Hill staffers without formal legal protections until the resolutions pass.
虽然联邦劳工法保护大多数美国雇员的劳工组织活动，但国会却不受其自身立法的约束，在决议通过之前，国会山的员工得不到正式的法律保护。
Many fear being fired or blacklisted. (TIME has granted anonymity to these organizers.)
许多人害怕被解雇或被列入黑名单。（时代周刊对这些组织者进行了匿名。）
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