实习生死亡 金融城加班文化遭声讨

Banks in the City of London are facing calls to overhaul the working culture for younger staff following the death of a 21-year-old intern at Bank of America.

美银美林(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)一位21岁的实习生死亡，致使人们呼吁伦敦金融城的银行整顿年轻员工的工作文化。

Moritz Erhardt, an intern at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London was found dead last week in his shower at his accommodation in east London, it emerged yesterday.

昨日有消息称，伦敦美银美林实习生莫里茨•埃哈特(Moritz Erhardt)上周被发现死于他在东伦敦住所的淋浴房内。

A Bank of America spokesman confirmed that the German business studies undergraduate had died, but said the bank had not yet been made aware of the cause of his death. He declined to comment on online reports claiming Mr Erhardt’s death was due to an epileptic fit that followed three nights of working 72 hours in a row.

美银美林的一位发言人确认，这位德国商科专业本科生已经死亡，但表示银行尚不清楚他的死因。他拒绝置评网络上声称埃哈特因连续工作72个小时后癫痫发作死亡的说法。

Bankers said working hours for interns are tough and often stretch beyond midnight, but added that it would be unusual for an intern to do two or even three all-nighters. “Analysts and associates have to work like dogs. But interns would not be trusted to do such long working hours as they are seen as too inexperienced,” one banker said.

银行家表示，实习生工作时间很长，通常超过了午夜，但补充道，一名实习生连续工作两三个通宵的情况很少。一名银行家表示：“分析师和助理得像狗一样工作。但实习生不会得到如此的信任，以至于工作这么长的时间，因为他们经验不足。”

Intern Aware, a charity campaigning for the better treatment of interns, hit out at what it called a 100-hour working culture for students on summer work experience at banks.

要求提高实习生待遇的慈善机构Intern Aware称之为“100小时工作文化”，并对这种学生银行暑期实习中盛行的文化进行了抨击。

Ben Lyons, the charity’s co-founder, said there needed to be a “change in culture and HR procedures where employees are assessed not on the total number of hours they are able to grind out, but on the quality of work they are able to produce”.

该慈善组织的联合创始人本•莱昂斯(Ben Lyons)表示，“必须改变文化和人力资源程序，评价员工不应根据他们能够拼命工作的时间长短，而是看他们的工作质量。”

Mr Erhardt was in the sixth of his seven weeks when he died. He was paid around £2,700 a month and had done three other internships at KPMG, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank.

埃哈特要工作7周，死亡时已经工作到了第6周。他每个月的报酬是2700英镑左右，此前曾在毕马威(KPMG)、摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)和德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)做过三次实习。

Bank of America said: “He was popular among his peers and was a highly diligent intern at our company with a promising future. Our first thoughts are with his family and we send our condolences to them.”

美银美林表示：“他在同辈中很受欢迎，在我们公司是一位非常勤奋的实习生，前途光明。我们的第一反应是联系他的家人，送去慰问。”

Chris Roebuck, a visiting professor of leadership at Cass Business School who has held senior HR roles in banks, said that overworking juniors was an increasing problem in the City.

卡斯商学院(Cass Business School)访问学者克里斯•罗巴克(Chris Roebuck)表示，过劳的年轻人日益成为伦敦金融城的一个问题。他在数家银行担任过高级人力资源管理职务。

“For reasons related to an individual’s ambition or the employment market, people are pretty desperate to get jobs,” he said. “Some employers are exploiting that fact, pushing people past the point where it makes sense for their health or from a business perspective.”

他表示：“由于个人雄心或者就业市场的原因，人们非常渴望抓住工作机会。有些雇主利用这种情况，迫使人们超负荷工作，即使对健康不利，对企业也不合理。”

Mr Roebuck said conditions had worsened following the financial crisis as many institutions had been reducing headcount. But several bankers pointed out that internships are used as recruitment tools.

罗巴克表示，在金融危机之后，情况变本加厉，因为很多机构一直在裁员。但有几位银行家指出，实习被用做招聘工具。

Epilepsy Action, the charity, said about 600,000 people in the UK have the condition, of which about 1,000 die each year from related causes. It said a number of factors can trigger seizures, including a lack of sleep, stress and a lack of food.

慈善机构Epilepsy Action表示，英国约有60万人患有癫痫，其中每年有1000人死于相关病因。该机构表示，诱发癫痫发作的因素有很多，包括睡眠不足、压力过大或者饮食不足。