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Sample translations submitted: 2
Japanese to English: フランス地方大都市における都市公共交通サービス General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Transport / Transportation / Shipping
Source text - Japanese フランス地方大都市における都市公共交通サービス
―マルセイユ市の事例を中心に（1870年~1930年代）―
Translation - English Urban Public Transportation Service in Major Regional Cities in France; Primarily the Cases of Marseille City (1870’s Through the 1930’s)
Since the 1870’s, suburban public transportation grew in importance in major cities in France. The mode of its construction and operation was decided by each municipality through a concession system. Under that system, urban public transportation in major French cities achieved technological advancement. Yet, the process of developing urban transportation facilities varied depending on the city. The capital city of Paris, while boasting a modern metro network, continued to use outdated means of ground transportation such as omnibuses and horse tramways until 1913. Compared to large French regional cities where the electric tramway had been commonly used since the beginning of the century, Paris’ urban public transportation was under unusual circumstances.
After World War I, Lyon and Marseille demonstrated a clear difference in the management trends of their transportation networks. Lyon succeeded in downsizing the management; most lines were laid in densely populated areas, which was geographically favorable to the management. By contrast, the Marseille transportation network, as a result of conceding a large number of unprofitable lines in remote suburbs, fell into chronic deficits, worse than before World War I. In Marseille, the influence peddling of politicians into electoral bases associated with the generalization of male universal suffrage was particularly in evidence in the field of urban public transportation service.
Japanese to English: 個人主義的な勤労倫理の内面化 General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc.
Source text - Japanese 個人主義的な勤労倫理の内面化
昨年8月、私は大阪の釜ヶ崎という、日本でもっとも貧困層が集住する地区で、学生とともに3日間のインタビュー調査をおこなった。釜ヶ崎は戦前からの長い歴史をもつ貧困と差別の街であるが、とくに1970年の大阪万博の開催にあわせて全国から男性単身労働者がここに集められたことを契機に、今日に至るまで、西日本一円の建設現場へ日雇労働者を供給する基地となっている。90年代の景気後退とともに、釜ヶ崎では路上生活者が急増するとともに高齢化が進んでいる。ここで路上生活者にシェルターに入り生活保護を申請することを勧める活動をしているNPOの職員に尋ねると、ぎりぎりの生活をしながら、それでも福祉の世話になりたくないと言い、わずかの収入にしかならない空き缶拾いをしながら路上生活をつづけようとする高齢者が多いことを一様に強調する。こうした労働者たちは自分たちがかつての高度成長を支えたという誇りをもち、大半が家族をもたない男性単身者であることも関係してか、「就労による自立」という規範をきわめて強く内面化している。個人主義的な勤労倫理を体現する彼らにとって、福祉受給は恥と考えられている。
釜ヶ崎は、かつては警察による治安管理や暴力団との癒着に反発した暴動が頻発した街でもある（2008年に発生した（おそらく）最後の暴動は「24次暴動」と呼ばれている）。彼らを支えたのは釜ヶ崎日雇労働組合という地域の小さな組合である。この組合は、日雇労働における労働条件の改善や、近年では市の委託による道路清掃作業など雇用確保の面で成果をあげているが、釜ヶ崎があまりに特殊な地域で孤立していたためか、他の労働組合や政党と連携して不安定雇用の就労者のための福祉制度を改善してゆくことに成功したとは言えない。
一方、近年ではこれとは異なるタイプの若年貧困層の拡大が問題となっている。後に述べるように、こうした日雇労働者を除けば、かつての日本の男性工場労働者の多くは定期昇給のある年功型の賃金を受けとることのできる、比較的安定した生活を享受していた。しかし80年代以降、工場労働は徐々に女性パート労働者に置き換えられ、90年代以降は国際競争の激化と産業構造の転換のため製造業における雇用が減少することによって、一部の地域では外国人労働者への置き換えが進むようになる。また景気後退とグローバルな金融資本主義の拡大によって、企業は人件費への投資をますます負担であると考えるようになり、若年正規労働者の採用を絞り、非正規労働に置き換えていった。
こうして日本では、1990年代後半から若年労働者の不安定就労の拡大が問題となった。その多くはサービス産業で働いている彼らもまた、旧来型の日雇建設労働者と同様、きわめて個人主義的な勤労倫理を内面化している。既成の労働組合の大半が非正規労働者の組織化に消極的であるため、都市部では新しく生まれた独立した組合やNPOが非正規労働者の支援を行っている。労働問題や貧困問題にとり組むこうした活動家たちは、相談にやって来る労働者の多くが、法令違反の雇い止めや過酷な労働条件を突きつけられながらも、ぎりぎりまで「自分の努力が足りないせいだ」と思い込んで働きつづけていることを一様に指摘している。多くの若年労働者は、すでに個人主義的な勤労倫理を充分に内面化しており、労働組合や福祉制度に頼ることを選択肢として思い浮かべることが難しいのである。
Translation - English Internalization of Individualistic Work Ethic
In August last year, the author and his students conducted a three-day interview in the Kamagasaki district in Osaka. This district is known to have the largest population of impoverished members of society in Japan. Kamagasaki has a long history of poverty and discrimination. But one turning point came when the Osaka World Exposition was held in 1970. Male tanshin (lone) workers gathered here from all over the country; up to now, the district has been a base to provide day laborers to construction sites in the entire region of Western Japan. After the economic recessions in the 1990s, however, the number of homeless people living in the streets of Kamagasaki surged and the aging of the population also has advanced. We interviewed NPO staffers who had been recommending to homeless people there that they apply for welfare benefits. They uniformly stressed that there are many elderly people who don’t want to depend on welfare even though they’re barely scraping by; they want to continue their lifestyle picking up aluminum cans and cashing them in for a meager income. Those senior workers take pride in the fact that they used to support Japan’s high economic growth period; perhaps because the majority of them are male workers without families, “they have very strongly internalized the norm of “self-reliance by employment.” Therefore, they --- those who embody individualistic work ethic --- regard welfare receipt with a sense of shame.
Kamagasaki often witnessed riots --- riots against the coercive public enforcement by the police and their collusive relationship with organized crime (the perhaps last riot in Kamagasaki occurred in 2008; it is called “The 24th Riot”). What supported those rioters was the Kamagasaki Day Labor Union, a small local union. Under this union, working conditions have improved for day laborers, and in recent years, the union has been successful in securing jobs such as the roadside cleaning work commissioned by the city. Yet, because this district has been isolated in many ways, one cannot say that the union has succeeded in improving the welfare system for workers who are in a difficult employment situation by cooperating with other labor unions or political parties.
Meanwhile, in recent years, there has been a different type of problem in Kamagasaki: the expansion of poor young people. As will be mentioned later, except for those day workers, many of Japan’s male factory workers once enjoyed a relatively stable life with a seniority-based wage system with a regular pay raise. However, since the 1980s, male factory workers have been gradually replaced by female part-time workers; after the 1990s, manufacturing jobs decreased due to intensified international competition and a shift in industrial structure. As a result, male workers were increasingly replaced by foreign workers in some areas. Furthermore, the recession spread and global financial capitalism grew; more and more, corporations regarded the investment into personnel expenses as a burden, and began to limit the recruitment of young full-time workers and went on to replace them with non-regular workers.
Thus, since the late 1990s, Japan has been faced with the problematic effects of unstable employment among young workers. Many of them work in the service industry, and just as traditional day-labor construction workers, they have internalized very individualistic work ethic. Since a majority of existing labor unions are hesitant about organizing non-regular workers, newly founded independent unions and NPOs are supporting non-regular workers in urban areas. The activists tackling labor issues and poverty-related problems all point out one thing: many of those workers who sought consultation used to work in a somewhat myopic manner, automatically assuming “It’s because of the lack of my effort” even though they were experiencing illegal firing or working under extremely harsh conditions. Because many young workers have already internalized an individualistic work ethic, it is difficult for them to imagine relying on a labor union or welfare system.
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Years of experience: 33. Registered at ProZ.com: Sep 2014.
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