Jobs for life一生悬命
Dec 19th 2007 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

Japanese employees are working themselves to death
日本职员死工作

HARA-KIRI is a uniquely Japanese form of suicide. Its corporate equivalent is karoshi, “death by overwork”. Since this was legally recognised as a cause of death in the 1980s, the number of cases submitted to the government for the designation has soared; so has the number of court cases that result when the government refuses an application. In 1988 only about 4% of applications were successful. By 2005 that share had risen to 40%. If a death is judged karoshi, surviving family members may receive compensation of around $20,000 a year from the government and sometimes up to $1m from the company in damages. For deaths not designated karoshi the family gets next to nothing.

切腹是日本人独特的自杀方式。它的企业版则是过劳死，即“死于加班”。自80年代法律承认了过劳死是一种死因，提交给政府要求鉴别的案例数量飙升；同样的还有政府拒绝申请后的诉讼。在1988年，仅有大约4%的申请成功。到2005年，这个比例上升到40%。倘若鉴定为过劳死，幸存的家庭成员可以每年从政府领到约2万美元的补偿，有时还可以从公司拿到高达一百万美元赔偿。而不被认为是过劳死的死者家属几乎什么也得不到。

Now a recent court ruling has put companies under pressure to change their ways. On November 30th the Nagoya District Court accepted Hiroko Uchino’s claim that her husband, Kenichi, a third-generation Toyota employee, was a victim of karoshi when he died in 2002 at the age of 30. He collapsed at 4am at work, having put in more than 80 hours of overtime each month for six months before his death. “The moment when I am happiest is when I can sleep,” Mr Uchino told his wife the week of his death. He left two children, aged one and three.

最近的一次法庭裁定将给公司施加压力促使它们改变方针。11月30日，名古屋地区法院认可了内野博子的要求——确认她的丈夫健一是过劳死的受害者，健一是家中的第三代丰田员工，他在2002年时去世，年仅30岁。健一在凌晨四点倒下了，那时他还在工作，在死前的六个月里他每月都要加班80个小时。“我最高兴的时刻是我能够睡觉了的时候”在死的那个礼拜他跟他的妻子这么说。他留下两个孩子，一个一岁、一个三岁。

As a manager of quality control, Mr Uchino was constantly training workers, attending meetings and writing reports when not on the production line. Toyota treated almost all that time as voluntary and unpaid. So did the Toyota Labour Standards Inspection Office, part of the labour ministry. But the court ruled that the long hours were an integral part of his job. On December 14th the government decided not to appeal against the verdict.

作为负责品质管理的经理，内野不在生产线上时还要时常的培训员工、出席会议或者撰写报告。丰田（公司）一直视员工这样的加班为员工自愿并且拒绝支付报酬。而劳动基准监督署（厚生劳动省的一个部门）也这样认为。但法院裁定，长时间的加班是内野工作的一部分。12月14日，日本政府决定接受判决不提出上诉。

The ruling is important because it may increase the pressure on companies to treat “free overtime” (work that an employee is obliged to perform but not paid for) as paid work. That would send shockwaves through corporate Japan, where long, long hours are the norm.

这份裁决很重要，因为它有可能增加公司在视“义务加班”（员式不得已所做的工作却未取得报酬）为有偿工作的压力。这份裁决会在长时间工作稀松平常的日本掀起轩然大波。

Official figures say that the Japanese work about 1,780 hours a year, slightly less than Americans (1,800 hours a year), though more than Germans (1,440). But the statistics are misleading because they do not count “free overtime”. Other tallies show that one in three men aged 30 to 40 works over 60 hours a week. Half say they get no overtime. Factory workers arrive early and stay late, without pay. Training at weekends may be uncompensated.

日本官方称日本员工每年工作大约1780小时，比美国人（每年1800个小时）略少，但比德国人（1440）多。但统计数字并不可信，因为它没有计算“义务加班”的时间。有其它说法说每三名30岁到40岁的员工就有一名员工每周工作超过60小时。一半的人说他们拿不到加班费。工厂工人早早的到，而且待到很晚，没有薪水。周末的训练也是没有报酬的。

During the past 20 years of economic doldrums, many companies have replaced full-time workers with part-time ones. Regular staff who remain benefit from lifetime employment but feel obliged to work extra hours lest their positions be made temporary. Cultural factors reinforce these trends. Hard work is respected as the cornerstone of Japan’s post-war economic miracle. The value of self-sacrifice puts the benefit of the group above that of the individual.

在日本经济低迷的20年里，许多公司把全日制员工换成非全日制的员工。固定员工虽然仍能从终生雇佣中获益但却不得不在额外的时间工作以免他们的职位被换成临时雇员。文化上的因素又强化了这种趋势。努力工作的人受到尊敬，并被认为是日本战后经济奇迹的基石。自我牺牲的价值观将群体的利益置于个人利益之上。

Toyota, which is challenging GM as the world’s largest carmaker, is often praised for the efficiency and flexibility of its workforce. Ms Uchino has a different view. “It is because so many people work free overtime that Toyota reaps profits,” she says. “I hope some of those profits can be brought back to help the employees and their families. That would make Toyota a true global leader.” The company is promising to prevent karoshi in future.

正在挑战GM世界第一大的汽车制造商地位的丰田经常因其员工的效能和弹性受到赞扬。内野女士持另一种观点。“那是因为很多人义务加班，丰田才能获得利润。”她说。“我希望利润的一部分能够返还给员工和他们的家人。这样丰田才能成为货真价实的全球领袖。”丰田许诺未来将预防再出现过劳死。