过劳死与日本加班文化

For a nation struggling to make sense of deflation, duty and the shock of a graduate trainee being worked to death at one of Japan’s most prestigious companies, “Premium Friday” seems to provide a glimmer of hope.

对于一个挣扎着搞明白通缩、责任以及一名实习生在日本最具声望的企业之一过劳死事件所带来的打击的国家来说，“超值星期五”(Premium Friday)似乎提供了一丝希望。

Following revelations of ruinously excessive overtime demands at Japan’s largest advertising agency, Dentsu, the government wants bosses to order their overworked, sleep-deprived employees home at 3pm on the last Friday of every month.

在日本最大的广告公司电通(Dentsu)被曝要求其员工进行摧残身心的过度加班后，日本政府希望老板们命令过度工作、睡眠不足的雇员在每个月最后一个周五的下午3点下班回家。

Proponents of the idea, which include the powerful Keidanren business lobby, argue that workers could use the time for recuperative snoozing or enjoy more leisure activities and rev the economy out of deflation.

该想法的支持者(包括强大的商业游说团体日本经济团体联合会(Keidanren))认为，工人可以利用这段时间打个盹恢复体力、或享受更多的休闲活动，推动经济加快走出通缩。

It may not, say many labour experts, be quite that simple.

很多劳工专家称，事情可能远没那么简单。

In Japan, quality time has long been measured in minutes. But pressure is piling on Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, now entering his fifth year at the helm of the “Abenomics” economic revitalisation programme. Legal claims of death by overwork have risen to a record during his reign, and many see labour reform as badly overdue.

在日本，与家人共享天伦之乐的“优质时间”一直是以分钟来计算的。但在“安倍经济学”经济复兴计划进入第5年之际，日本首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)受到越来越大的压力。在安倍任期内，过劳死引发的诉讼数量上升至创纪录高点，同时很多人认为劳动法律改革早就应该出台。

Mr Abe is discovering — as leaders before him have — that any attempt to reform Japan’s long-hour culture stumbles. Attitudes have adapted from postwar nation rebuilding to the 1980s desire for dominance, through to the protect-my-job-at-all-cost workaholism of the past two deflationary decades. What has remained constant is punishing overwork.

正如历届日本领导人所发现的那样，安倍正在发现，改革日本加班文化的任何尝试都会受挫。多年来，人们对加班的态度不断改变：从战后国家重建、发展到上世纪80年代渴望主导地位、进而演变为过去20年通缩时期“不惜代价保住我的工作”的工作狂心态。始终不变的是令人疲惫不堪的过度工作。

“There is a structural and deep-rooted problem with the working practice not just of Dentsu but other companies,” says Hiroshi Kawahito, a lawyer advising the family of Matsuri Takahashi, a Dentsu graduate trainee whose suicide has roused the Japanese public from a traditional indifference towards stories of punishing overwork.

“工作实践中存在一个根深蒂固的结构性问题，不仅是在电通，其他公司也有，”为高桥茉莉(Matsuri Takahashi)的家人提供法律咨询的川人博(Hiroshi Kawahito)表示。高桥曾是电通的实习生，她的自杀唤醒了日本公众，使他们对过度工作的故事不再像以往那样无动于衷。

The true extent of overtime worked in Japan, adds Waseda University labour law professor Makoto Ishida, is “impossible to calculate but undoubtedly very very huge”.

东京早稻田大学(Waseda University)劳动法教授石田真(Makoto Ishida)补充称，日本加班的真实程度“无法估计，但无疑非常非常严重”。

Last month, when Japan’s labour ministry referred Dentsu and one of its executives to prosecutors over Ms Takahashi’s death, the company said in a statement: “We take the incident seriously. We offer our apology to those concerned for causing such a situation.”

上月，日本厚生劳动省(Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare)就高桥自杀一事把电通及其一名高管移交检方查办，该公司在一份声明中表示：“我们认真对待这起事件。我们为造成这一事件向相关人士道歉。”

Ms Takahashi’s death came to light late last year after her parents went public with the conclusion of the local labour standards bureau that their daughter had been a victim of karoshi — the legally recognised “death by overwork” syndrome from which, officially, at least 200 Japanese die every year, and which labour groups believe silently claims many more.

去年底，当高桥的父母公开了当地劳动标准局作出的关于她死于过劳死(karoshi)的结论后，这一事件由此曝光。过劳死是法律承认的“过度工作致死”综合症，根据官方数据，日本每年至少有200人死于过劳死，而劳工组织认为未报告的实际数字高得多。

Media reports on the contents of deleted text messages Ms Takahashi sent to her mother while she was struggling to survive on just 10 hours of sleep a week bit the public mood in Japan particularly hard.

媒体报道了高桥发给母亲的已删除的短信内容，当时她正挣扎于撑过每周只睡10个小时的日子。这些报道格外沉重地触痛了日本的公众情绪。

Work overload has become a global problem, as access to technology has blurred the definition of working hours.

随着无所不在的技术设备模糊了“工作时间”的定义，超负荷工作已成为一个全球问题。

From January 1, French organisations with more than 50 workers have been obliged to start negotiations with staff to define the hours they can ignore their smartphones. Many banks have sought to curb long hours for junior bankers in the wake of the death of a Bank of America intern in London in 2013, which was a result of a seizure possibly caused by work overload, a coroner’s inquest found.

从1月1日起，拥有50名员工以上的法国公司有义务开始与员工协商，界定他们可以忽视智能手机的时间。在2013年美国银行(Bank of America)伦敦分行的一名实习生死于癫痫发作(死因聆讯发现，这可能由超负荷工作造成)后，很多银行试图限制初级职员长时间工作。

Japanese work culture is, however, infused with an idea that exhaustion is more virtuous than excellence — a position that has suited companies just fine. Karoshi is nothing new. The term was first recognised in Japan decades ago, and annual claims have been steadily rising to a record 1,456 in 2015. Clocking up an average of just over 2,000 working hours a year, the Japanese are one of the world’s most overworked nations.

然而，日本的工作文化浸淫着“疲惫比卓越更有美德”的观念——这种立场刚好符合企业利益。过劳死并不新鲜。几十年前，日本就首次承认了这个词，过劳死引发的索赔案件逐年增加，2015年达到创纪录的1456起。日本人平均一年的工作时间累计超过2000个小时，是全世界过度工作最严重的国家之一。

A recent health ministry report found Japanese sleeping even less in 2015 than they did in the pressurised 1980s. Corporate Japan’s long-term shift to employing more part-time workers has served to increase the workloads on full-time staff.

厚生劳动省最近一份报告发现，2015年日本人的睡眠时间比压力极大的上世纪80年代还要少。日本企业转向聘用更多兼职员工的长期趋势，加大了全职员工的工作负荷。

Even the language of the workplace gives the game away: as each worker leaves (no matter how late), he or she apologises to those left behind (osakini shitsureishimasu) for doing so. The remainers duly thank the departee for “tiring yourself out”.

甚至职场语言也很说明问题：每当有一名员工下班时(无论有多晚)，他或她都会向继续加班的同事道歉(“我先告辞了”(osakini shitsureishimasu))。留下的人适时地感谢离开者“你辛苦了”。

Reform attempts are under way. There is an existing policy to name and shame companies that force more than 100 hours of overtime per month on employees. The threshold will be lowered to 80 hours. Failing bosses will have to explain themselves to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

目前日本正在进行多种改革尝试。有一项现行政策会点名和批评那些强迫员工每月加班超过100个小时的公司。这一门槛将被降至80个小时。未达标的公司老板将不得不向厚生劳动省作出解释。

But the Premium Friday campaign may prove to be a cosmetic publicity drive unless Japanese companies change the culture.

但除非日本企业改变工作文化，否则“超值星期五”活动可能被证明是徒劳的宣传努力。

In a deliberately high-visibility strategy last October, Dentsu’s Tokyo headquarters and regional offices were raided by labour office inspectors. This resulted in the company saying it would turn its office lights off at 10pm each evening. Dentsu then lowered the maximum number of overtime hours it would officially allow each employee to work. But according to one current employee: “One of the first things you learn when you arrive is how to clock out with your pass card then duck back under the entry gates so you can work unofficial overtime without officially being in the building.”

在去年10月一次刻意高调的行动中，劳工机构的检查人员突袭了电通的东京总部和地区办事处。这使得该公司表示以后其办公室将在每晚10点关灯。之后电通降低了名义上允许每个员工加班的最长时间。但一名在职员工称：“你来到这学会的第一件事就是如何用通行证打卡下班、之后钻过门闸，这样你就可以进行非官方加班了，名义上你根本不在办公楼内。”

Dentsu’s patrician president, Tadashi Ishii, resigned in December over what he called the company’s failure to “achieve dramatic reform of overwork”.

去年12月，电通总裁石井直(Tadashi Ishii)辞职，他称原因是该公司未能“实现对过度工作的戏剧性改革”。

The company is far from alone. Lawyers tell of employers routinely assuming staff will provide what is euphemistically known as “service time” — effectively obligatory, illegally worked hours of unpaid overtime to maintain good relationships with customers.

电通绝非个例。律师称，雇主往往假设员工将作出美其名曰“服务时间”的贡献——实际上是义务、非法的无薪加班，目的是维持与客户的良好关系。

Workers are increasingly seeing karoshi and onerous overtime expectations with other failures of company management and unions to effect positive social change, says Prof Ishida.

早稻田大学的石田教授称，员工们日趋把两大方面的问题放在一起看待，一是过劳死现象和过高的加班期望，二是公司管理层和工会在其他方面未能推动积极的社会变革的失败。

The Dentsu incident has intensified pressure on Mr Abe, adds Prof Ishida, who suggests the prime minister may now prioritise amending article 36 of the Labour Standards Act that allows a company and its employees to agree to unlimited overtime. Other reforms proposed by academics include encouraging companies to penalise middle managers who fail to reduce overtime hours.

石田教授补充称，电通事件向安倍施加了更大压力，他认为安倍如今可能优先修改《劳工标准法》(Labour Standards Act)第36条——该条款让企业和其雇员同意无限加班。学者们提出的其他改革包括，鼓励企业惩罚那些没能减少加班时间的中层管理者。

However, Keio University labour law professor Yoshio Higuchi warns the end of karoshi “will require a simultaneous huge shift in Japanese society itself”.

然而，庆应义塾大学(Keio University)劳动法教授樋口美雄(Yoshio Higuchi)警告称，过劳死问题“需要日本社会同时作出巨大转变”。

Additional reporting by Harriet Agnew

哈丽雅特•阿格纽(Harriet Agnew)补充报道