钢铁业衰落时代的双城记
Opposite the Enterprise Revolution offices, where former steelworkers seek advice on self employment, stretches Redcar’s magnificent beach, lashed with rain. Beyond the sandbanks, the blast furnace looms cold and large through the mist.
在前钢铁厂员工寻求自谋职业建议的“创业革命”(Enterprise Revolution)办公室的对面，就是雨中弯弯曲曲的雷德卡海滩，景色壮美。比沙滩更远处，一座高炉高大的身影在雨雾中冷冷隐现。
In the UK, the latest crisis in steel’s long decline has sparked anger at the government and appeals to rescue more than 3,000 jobs. But steel’s woes stretch around the world: in China, half a million jobs are reckoned to be on the verge of disappearing.
在英国，长期以来不断衰落的钢铁业最近的这场危机，引发了人们对政府的愤怒，人们呼吁政府拯救3000多个工作岗位。但钢铁业的麻烦在世界各地蔓延：在中国，据估计有50万个岗位濒临消失。
For almost 170 years, iron and then steelmaking underpinned Teesside’s economy and self-image. Thousands of men thought this was a job for life: start in your teens, finish at 60 or thereabouts, job done — and a good pension.
近170年来，炼铁和炼钢先后支撑了蒂赛德(Teesside)的经济和自我形象。无数人以为，这就是终身工作：十几岁入行，干到大约60岁退休，任务完成——领取一份丰厚的养老金。
Then, last October, SSI UK, the Thai-owned company that had rescued the mothballed Redcar blast furnace and its steel slab-making plants in north-east England in 2011, collapsed, its business plan wrecked by a glut of cheap Chinese steel and by the relatively high costs of UK production.
结果是，曾经于2011年拯救了英格兰东北部雷德卡封存的高炉以及钢板生产厂的泰资企业——伟成发钢铁工业公司英国分公司(SSI UK)，在去年10月倒闭了，其商业计划由于市场上价格低廉的中国钢材供应过剩和英国生产成本相对较高而破产。
As about 2,000 SSI UK employees and 1,000 contractors suddenly lost their jobs, the UK government said it could not save or help to mothball the furnace and coke ovens for future use.
伟成发英国分公司的大约2000名雇员和1000名合同工突然没了工作。英国政府表示，不可能拯救、或者帮助封存高炉和炼焦炉以备未来使用。
Instead, it hastily offered a ￡80m support package: ￡30m for redundancy payments and ￡50m for retraining, business start-up grants, wage subsidies for employers taking on former steelworkers and support for Teesside businesses.
相反，英国政府紧急提供了8000万英镑的扶持方案：3000万英镑用于支付解雇费，5000万英镑用于再培训、发放创业补助、向雇佣前钢铁厂员工的雇主发放工资补贴以及支持蒂赛德的企业。
Teesside’s steel industry employed 33,000 people as recently as 1980. It is now down to a few plants employing 1,200, processing steel made elsewhere in the UK. And despite the support package, the past six months have been tough.
1980年，蒂赛德钢铁业的雇员人数为3.3万，如今，只剩了总共雇佣了1200人的几家钢铁厂，加工英国其他地方生产的钢材。尽管有了扶持方案，过去6个月仍然难熬。
“We are struggling but getting by,” said Steven Reid, who was a train driver at the steelworks, where he now works on a week-by-week basis. His son Macaulay, 21, formerly a contractor at SSI, is unemployed. Macaulay had started a temporary six-month factory job, a 60-mile daily round trip, but his pay could not sustain the cost of fuel and his ￡400 a month car loan, taken out in steelworks days.
“我们过得很困难，但能勉强过活，”以前在钢铁厂当火车司机的史蒂文•里德(Steven Reid)表示。如今他的工作状态是干一周算一周。他的儿子麦考利(Macaulay)今年21岁，曾在伟成发当合同工，如今处于失业状态。麦考利曾在一家工厂做了6个月的临时工，每天往返60英里，但收入还不够付油钱和偿还每月400英镑的车贷。车贷是他在钢铁厂工作时申请下来的。
Asked to rate on a scale of one to 10 how hard it would be to rebuild Redcar’s economy, Amanda Skelton, chair of the task force set up to engender recovery, did not hesitate. “Ten,” she said. “It’s about the culture of the place — the fact that steel runs in people’s blood. SSI were a ray of light and hope. It has been a great disappointment.”
当被要求给重建雷德卡经济的难度按1分至10分打分时，经济复苏特别工作组负责人阿曼达•斯凯尔顿(Amanda Skelton)毫不犹豫。“10分，”她说，“这是由于这里的文化——事实上，钢铁融入了人们的血液里。伟成发曾带来一抹光亮和希望。但它太让我们失望了。”
According to Ms Skelton, the local economy, once dominated by dynamic Victorian ironmasters and then by ICI, the chemicals and petrochemicals group, is now dependent on a few large-scale foreign-owned employers. “Decisions are being made in boardrooms across the world.”
斯凯尔顿称，维多利亚时代活力十足的铁器制造商、化学与石化企业帝国化学工业(ICI)曾先后主宰当地经济，如今，当地经济的支柱是少数几家大型外资企业。“决策是在位于世界各地的董事会里做出的。”
This was underlined, just weeks after SSI UK’s liquidation, by news that the Israeli-owned Boulby potash mine, just south of Redcar, was to shed 360 jobs, a third of its total. Enterprise Revolution staff have been left trying to explain to former potash miners why they qualify only for business start-up loans while former steelworkers, thanks to the rescue package, can get grants of up to ￡10,000.
明确表明这一点的是伟成发英国分公司破产仅几周后传出的新闻：雷德卡以南由以色列所有的博比(Boulby)钾盐矿将裁员360人，为员工总人数的三分之一。“创业革命”的工作人员不得不向前钾盐矿员工解释，为何他们只能获得创业贷款，而得益于救助方案，前钢铁厂员工可以获得至多1万英镑的创业补助。
The 71 businesses started by former steelworkers have provided cheering stories of skills being applied to self-employment. However, Phil Teasdale, founder and chief executive of Enterprise Revolution, said: “It is really easy to start a business. It is about sustaining a business.”
前钢铁厂员工创立的71家企业，让人看到了把技能运用到自谋职业中去的令人振奋的案例。然而，“创业革命”的创始人兼首席执行官菲尔•蒂斯代尔(Phil Teasdale)表示：“创办一家企业其实很容易。难的是把企业经营下去。”
His team sometimes has to drum some realism into new clients. “A lot of people think it’s Alan Sugar and Richard Branson.” Yet in Redcar, “the majority are potentially micro businesses”.
有时候，他的团队不得不强迫新客户认清现实。“很多人认为自己是艾伦•休格(Alan Sugar)和理查德•布兰森(Richard Branson)。”但在雷德卡，“大部分企业可能都是微型企业”。
Mark Hill, 37, has gone from being a steelworker to preparing to open a Jamaican food takeaway in Middlesbrough next month backed by a ￡7,700 grant. It is a change of career that offers a welcome end to signing on at the JobCentre; for him, the past six months have spelt financial struggle and relationship breakdown.
37岁的马克•希尔(Mark Hill)不做炼钢工人之后，准备下月用7700英镑补助在米德尔斯布勒(Middlesbrough)开一家牙买加食品外卖店。这种职业转变让他终于不用再去就业中心(JobCentre)报到了；对他而言，过去6个月意味着财务困难、和伴侣的关系破裂。
“It’s embarrassing,” said Mr Hill of applying for benefits. “You are made to feel you’re going with your hands outstretched.”
“这令人难堪，”希尔在谈起申请失业津贴时表示，“你感觉自己是去伸手要钱的。”
So far, the task force has committed ￡14.5m to training and support for businesses and jobs. It has agreed 10,855 training courses for nearly 3,000 people and says 1,342 former SSI and supply chain workers have moved off benefits into full-time work or training.
到目前为止，这个特别工作组已投入了1450万英镑，用于培训以及对企业和就业岗位的支持。该工作组批准了近3000人的10855份培训课程，并表示，已有1342名前伟成发及其供应商员工不再领取失业津贴，开始了全职工作或培训。
But the challenge is by no means over.
但是，挑战绝没有结束。
Last September, before SSI UK’s liquidation, Redcar and Cleveland already had 5,600 unemployed people, a rate of 9.1 per cent against 5.5 per cent for England and Wales. Paul Warren, the SSI site’s union leader, now working full-time for the Community union, estimates 900 former steelworkers are still unemployed.
去年9月，在伟成发英国分公司倒闭之前，雷德卡和克利夫兰的失业人数已达5600人，失业率为9.1%，而英格兰和威尔士的失业率为5.5%。如今全职为社区工会工作的伟成发工会领袖保罗•沃伦(Paul Warren)估计，目前有900名前钢铁厂员工仍处于失业状态。
The steelworks paid well. Manual workers were on ￡33,000, plus overtime. Current vacancies offer much less, such as ￡20,000 a year for an electrician, half the steelworks rate. Rather than take those jobs, some tradesmen are commuting weekly to London.
钢铁厂工资曾经很高。算上加班费，钢铁厂工人的年收入为3.3万英镑。当前空缺职位的工资低了很多，比如电工年薪为2万英镑，约为钢铁厂薪水的一半。有些钢铁厂工人没有选择这些工作，而是每周都通勤去伦敦上班。
For those still unemployed, Mr Warren worries about anger and frustration turning into demoralisation. “Some people have got to 50, had the rug pulled from under them and are thinking, ‘I give up’.”
沃伦担心，那些仍然失业的人可能会由愤怒和沮丧转向消沉。“有些人已经50岁了，猛然失去了保障，开始想，‘我放弃算了’。”
Qianan’s furnaces lie silent after mill workers told to ‘take leave’
在钢铁厂通知工人“放假”之后，迁安的高炉静悄悄地矗立着
At the Qianan Zhayi steel mill, silence reigns. In an empty warehouse, coils of hot-rolled steel rust. Piles of slag sit beside cold blast furnaces. A solitary worker kicks rocks in an empty street.
在迁安轧一钢铁集团(Qianan Zhayi Steel)，万籁俱寂。一间空荡荡的仓库里，一卷卷热轧钢卷板已生锈。冰冷的高炉旁边，堆放着大量炉渣。一名工人独自在空旷的街道上踢着石块。
Like its counterparts in the UK and southern Australia, the Zhayi mill is a victim of a global industry in crisis. In March this year, the mill stopped taking orders, gathered its workers and told them to take a month off. “They don’t dare say xiagang [lay-off] — they say ‘take leave’,” said Zhou Kun, a steelworker in his 20s who until recently carried out quality inspection.
正如英国和澳大利亚南部的钢铁企业一样，迁安轧一也是全球性行业危机的受害者。今年3月，这家企业停止接单，把工人们召集到一起，宣布放假1个月。“他们不敢说下岗——他们说‘放假’，”20多岁的钢铁工人周昆(音)表示。直到最近，他一直在钢厂里做质检工作。
Workers are jobless regardless of the word used, according to Mr Zhou, who is one of the 500,000 steelworkers the Chinese government says will lose their jobs in the next five years.
周昆表示，不管使用哪个词，反正钢厂员工没有工作了。周昆是据中国政府宣布未来5年将下岗的50万名钢铁系统职工之一。
“There are no opportunities in the steel industry at the moment,” he added, explaining that he is reliant on family and friends to find new work but admitting that pretty much everyone he knows works or worked in local plants. “I spend most days at home surfing the web. What else can I do?”
“眼下，钢铁行业没有机会了，”他接着说。他解释称，自己在托家人和朋友找工作，但他承认，几乎他认识的每一个人都在当地工厂上班或曾经在那里上班。“大多数日子，我就在家里上网。我还能做什么呢？”
Qianan, a mineral-rich valley three hours west of Beijing, is packed with steel mills that expanded in size and number through the 1990s and 2000s to feed an insatiable construction industry.
迁安位于北京以西3小时车程处的一个山谷中，矿藏资源丰富，那里设立了许多钢铁厂。上世纪90年代至2000年代，钢铁厂的数量和规模都大为膨胀，以满足胃口奇大的建筑行业的需求。
The city grew wealthier on the back of the mill’s profits. Migrant workers flocked in looking for jobs, and locals from villages such as Mr Zhou’s began to abandon their one-storey homes in favour of newly built apartments in the town centre.
钢厂的利润让迁安市变得更加富有。农民工蜂拥而来寻找工作，像周昆一样的当地村民开始从平房搬进市中心新建的公寓楼里。
The boom years are over. China’s need for steel has peaked but its capacity has not, and the costs of this overhang are being felt at home and abroad. Vast overproduction last year saw Chinese steel flood out of the country, sinking prices worldwide and crippling steelmakers across the globe as it went.
繁荣年代已结束。中国的钢铁需求已见顶，但产能尚未见顶，国内外都开始感受到这种供过于求的代价。去年，在大规模的生产过剩下，中国的钢铁大量出口国外，压低了全球价格，严重削弱了全球各地的钢铁企业。
In Qianan, mills are also struggling to survive. A lack of demand and a surfeit of losses forced Tianjin Bohai Steel, which owns Zhayi, into negotiations with its creditors in an attempt to untangle Rmb192bn (￡20.9bn) in debt it is struggling to repay. Zhayi and three other mills are in limbo.
在迁安，钢铁企业也难以维持生存。需求不足，亏损过高，迫使迁安轧一的母公司天津渤海钢铁集团(Tianjin Bohai Steel)与债权人展开谈判，试图清理重组其难以偿还的1920亿元人民币（约合209亿英镑）债务。迁安轧一和其他三家钢铁企业已陷入瘫痪。
The outlook is not good, according to Xu Zhongbo, an analyst at China Metals Consultancy, who believes large mills with “primitive” equipment such as Zhayi are unappealing to buyers. “First these mills will stop production, then once the workers have left, they will close for good,” he said.
北京梅塔科咨询服务有限公司(Beijing Metal Consulting)总裁许中波表示，前景并不妙。他认为，像迁安轧一那样的设备“原始”的大型钢铁企业对买家没有吸引力。“首先，这些工厂将会停产，然后，一旦工人们离开，工厂就将永久性关闭，”他说。
Beijing has promised a Rmb100bn fund of “rewards and subsidies” to support official “resettlement” programmes by local governments and companies, but the details are unclear. Zhayi workers have received no official support and are even unaware of its existence.
北京方面已承诺投入1000亿元人民币“奖励与补贴”，支持地方政府和企业的官方“再安置”项目，但细节仍不明确。迁安轧一的工人尚未收到任何官方补助，甚至不知道有这回事。
Instead, they use informal means of job hunting. In north Qianan, a crowd of laid-off workers gathers around a billboard papered with A4 job advertisements.
相反，工人们使用非正式的求职渠道。在迁安北部，一群下岗工人聚集在一个贴满A4纸招聘广告的公告栏周围。
“[When people are laid off] there are two routes they can take,” said the operator of the board, who declined to be named as he works in a legal grey area. “One is to go and do [official] training, but you have to wait a long time. The other is to come here [to a labour market] and find work immediately.”
“（当人们下岗时，）他们有两个选择，”布告栏的经营者（由于其经营行为属于法律灰色地带，他不愿具名）表示，“一个是参加（政府组织的）培训，但你肯定得等上很长时间。另一个是来这里（的劳务市场），马上找到工作。”
Even with unofficial help, finding work is a struggle. Most job descriptions ask for young, well educated workers. Those more suited to laid-off workers — most of whom are older and male — largely offer temporary work or jobs away from the city.
尽管有非官方劳务市场的帮助，找到工作仍是难事。大多数职位介绍要找的是年轻、教育程度较高的工人。那些更适合下岗职工——主要是年龄偏大的男性——的工作多是临时性工作或距离城市很远的岗位。
Fed up with poor prospects and false promises, workers protest regularly. When Songting, another Qianan plant, closed last October, its workers filled the office parking lot demanding compensation. Such protests are anathema to the local government. The response is usually a crackdown and, if workers are lucky, a payout. But this does not create jobs or boost the local economy.
由于受够了暗淡的前景和虚假的承诺，钢厂员工时不时地举行抗议。当迁安的另一家工厂松汀钢铁厂(Songting Steel)于去年10月关闭时，工厂员工聚集到公司停车场上，要求得到补偿。地方政府对这种抗议非常头痛。回应通常是压制，如果工人们幸运的话，也会得到一笔钱。但是，这并未创造工作岗位，也未提振地方经济。
Largely ignoring the immediate problem, the Qianan government is focused on becoming a holiday destination and has changed its slogan from “City of Steel” to “Northern Water City”. A lack of tourist sites is being solved by building a temple in ancient Chinese style on the bank of the river.
迁安市政府在很大程度上忽略了迫在眉睫的问题，正集中精力把迁安打造成一个度假地，并已把宣传口号从“钢铁迁安”改为“北方水城”。为解决缺乏旅游景点的问题，迁安正在河岸上修建一座中国古代样式的寺庙。
Former steelworkers may also benefit in a way, though not necessarily financially, says Liu Dongshan, a steel trader turned taxi driver.
曾经的钢铁厂员工或许也能以某种方式获益，不过未必会有金钱上的好处，由钢铁经销商转行做出租车司机的刘东山（音）说。
“I don’t make as much money being a taxi driver as when the steel prices were high,” he said from behind the wheel of a new car. “But at least I have more freedom.”
“做出租车司机没有我在钢铁价格高时赚到的多，”他握着一辆新车的方向盘，“但我起码有了更大的自由。”
