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Death by overwork in Japan
Jobs for life性命换工作
Dec 19th 2007 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

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.
"切腹自杀"是日本独有的自杀方式，在工作中，日本独语的死法就是"过劳死"。自1980年过劳死被法律确认为死因以来，提交政府备案的过劳死案件数量激增，与此同时，政府驳回该类申请的数量也在上升。1988年申请的成功率只有4%。到2005年，这一比例已经升至40%。如果一宗过劳死被判定，死者家庭成员将从政府那里得到每年2万美元的补偿，有时还会从公司得到最高100万美元的赔偿。如果死亡没有被判定为过劳死，那就几乎什么也得不到。

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.
最近的一次法庭判决迫使各家公司改变一贯做法。2007年11月30日，名古屋地方法院受理了Hiroko Uchino丈夫过劳死的起诉。她的丈夫Kenichi是丰田公司的第三代职员，2002年30岁时死于过劳死。他在凌晨四点时倒下，在去世前，他已经连续6个月加班工作，每月加班时间超过80小时。在他去世的那一周，他还对妻子说，"我最幸福的时刻就是我能睡觉的时候"。他留下了两个孩子，一个三岁，一个一岁。

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.
这一裁决的重要性在于它给公司施压，要求其将"免费加班"（员工被强制完成但是却不支付薪酬的工作）算作带薪工作。这将给把长时间工作看做是家常便饭的日本企业界带来冲击。

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.
官方数据显示，日本职员每年工作约1780小时，略低于美国的1800小时，虽然远高于德国的1440小时。但是统计数据是不准确的，因为并未计入"免费加班"。另有数据显示，30到40岁男性员工中有三分之一每周工作超过60小时。有一半人说他们没有加班。工厂工人不收工钱早出晚归，周末安排的培训也不会有补偿。

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.

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