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| SEOUL, South Korea — At a logistics depot the size of an airplane hangar in southern Seoul, couriers recently held a ritual at the start of another grueling work day: They stood for a moment of silence to remember more than a dozen fellow couriers who they say died this year from overwork. |
| 韩国首尔——不久前，在首尔南部一个飞机库大小的物流仓库里，快递员们在开始又一个紧张的工作日前举行了一场仪式：他们肃立默哀，悼念今年据说是过劳死的十多名快递员。 |
| “We won’t be surprised here if one of us drops dead, too,” said Choi Ji-na, one of the couriers. |
| “如果我们中也有人倒毙，大家是不会惊讶的，”其中一名快递员崔智娜（音）说。 |
| Ms. Choi, 43, and other delivery workers in South Korea say they feel lucky to have jobs amid growing unemployment, and that they are proud to play an essential role in keeping the country’s Covid-19 cases down by delivering record numbers of packages to customers who prefer to stay safe at home. |
| 43岁的崔智娜和韩国其他快递员都表示，在失业率不断上升的情况下，他们觉得自己还能有工作很幸运，同时也为自己在减少韩国新冠确诊病例数量上发挥的重要作用感到自豪，是他们为那些更愿意安全呆在家里的消费者递送了数量创纪录的包裹。 |
| But they are also paying a price. |
| 但他们也付出了代价。 |
| The string of deaths among couriers this year has caused a national uproar, drawing attention to worker protections that are unevenly distributed in a place that once had one of the longest workweeks in the world. Packages are expected to arrive with “bullet speed,” but the uninsured workers delivering them say it is becoming impossible to keep up with the demand, and that labor rule changes made by President Moon Jae-in have left them out in the cold. |
| 今年发生的一连串快递员死亡事件在韩国引起了轩然大波，引发了人们对劳工保护不公的关注，韩国曾是世界上每周工作时间最长的地方之一。包裹要以“子弹速度”送达，但运送包裹的无保险工人表示，他们不可能满足得了需求，而韩国总统文在寅在修改劳工法规时，将他们遗忘。 |
| There have been 15 deaths among couriers so far, including some who died after complaining of unbearable workloads that kept them on the clock from dawn until past midnight. The delivery workers say they’re dying of “gwarosa,” or death by overwork. |
| 到目前为止，已经有15名快递员死亡，其中一些人生前曾经抱怨，从黎明一直忙到半夜的工作量令人难以忍受。快递员们说，他们会“过劳死”。 |
| “The workload has become just too much,” Ms. Choi said. “Since the coronavirus came, going home early enough to have dinner with my children has become a distant dream.” |
| “工作量实在太大了，”崔智娜说。“自新冠疫情暴发以来，早点回家陪孩子吃晚饭已经成为遥不可及的梦想。” |
| Couriers are some of the hardest-working, least protected workers in South Korea. Between 2015 and 2019, only one to four couriers died per year. This year, nine couriers died in the first half of the year alone, according to data that the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency submitted to the lawmaker Yong Hye-in. |
| 在韩国，快递员是工作最苦、受保护最少的劳工群体之一。2015年至2019年，平均每年只有一到四名快递员死亡。而据韩国职业安全健康局提交给龙慧贤（音）议员的数据显示，仅今年上半年，就有九名快递员死亡。 |
| When President Moon slashed the maximum workweek to 52 hours from 68 in 2018 to ensure a “work-life balance” and a “right to rest,” couriers were left out of the deal. As the pandemic rages on and packages pile up, couriers say they are not only facing longer hours, but an ever-present fear that they will succumb to the mounting volume of work. |
| 当文在寅总统在2018年将每周最长工作时间从68小时削减到52小时，以确保“工作与生活的平衡”和“休息的权利”时，快递员被排除在了协议之外。随着疫情肆虐和包裹堆积，快递员们说，他们不仅面临更长的工作时间，还要面对时刻存在的恐惧：被不断增加的工作量压垮。 |
| Online orders have surged around the world, and demand for delivered goods in South Korea has grown by 30 percent, to 3.6 billion parcels this year, according to some estimates. |
| 在全球范围内，网购都出现激增，据估计，韩国今年的快递需求增长了30%，达到36亿个包裹。 |
| Most deliveries in South Korea are handled by large logistics companies. Those firms outsource the labor to couriers, who are independent subcontractors working on commission using their own trucks in assigned areas. Since 1997, as e-commerce as boomed and competition has intensified, online shipping costs in the country have dropped by more than half. |
| 韩国大部分快递都是由大型物流公司处理的。这些公司将运送工作外包给快递员，他们是抽取佣金的独立分包商，在指定地区用自己的货车送货。自1997年以来，随着电子商务的蓬勃发展和竞争的加剧，网上付运的价格下降一半以上。 |
| Shopping malls and logistics firms now promise even faster deliveries, offering “within-the-day,” “before-dawn” and “bullet-speed” options. But the fees collected by couriers have dropped. Workers now receive between 60 and 80 cents per parcel and have been slapped with penalties when they fail to meet delivery deadlines set by major online shopping retailers. |
| 商场和物流公司如今承诺更快的送货速度，提供“当日达”、“次晨服务”和“子弹配送”的选择。但快递员收取的费用却下降了。现在，快递员每送一个包裹能收到60到80美分，如果未能在主要网络零售商设定的最后期限内送达，还会被罚款。 |
| One courier in Seoul, Kim Dong-hee, returned home at 2 a.m. on Oct. 7. Later that day, he returned to the warehouse to pick up 420 packages. He still had many deliveries to make when he texted a colleague at 4:28 a.m. the next day. He said he would be home by 5 a.m. but would barely have time to eat and wash up before heading out again. |
| 今年10月7日，首尔快递员金东熙（音）凌晨2点才返回家中。当天晚些时候，他回到仓库，拿走了420件包裹。第二天凌晨4点28分，还有许多包裹没送的他给同事发了短信。他说自己会在早上5点到家，但几乎没时间吃饭洗漱，就要再次出门工作。 |
| “I am just too tired,” he wrote. |
| “我太累了，”他写道。 |
| Four days later, he didn’t show up for work. When colleagues checked his home, they found him dead; the police ruled that heart failure was the cause. Colleagues say he was killed by overwork. He was 36. |
| 四天后，他没有来上班。当同事们去他家找人的时候，发现他已经死了；警方判定他的死因是心力衰竭。同事们说他是过劳死。他时年36岁。 |
| The day Mr. Kim sent his message, another man in Seoul, Kim Won-jong, collapsed on his delivery route, complaining of chest pain and difficulty breathing before he died. |
| 就在金东熙发短信那天，首尔另一名快递员金元中（音）在送货途中晕倒，他临死时曾说自己胸痛和呼吸困难。 |
| “I remember how tired he looked late in the evening, his shoulders slumped and his cap pulled low, as if he were semiconscious,” a customer who knew Mr. Kim wrote online after his death made news. |
| “我还记得那天夜深之后他看上去是多么疲惫，耷拉着肩膀，帽沿拉得很低，好像半睡半醒一样，”金元中去世的消息上新闻以后，一位认识金元中的顾客在网上写道。 |
| It has become common to see weary couriers weaving through apartment compounds in the dead of night, delivering fruit, bottled water, Christmas decorations and other items many shoppers now prefer to have delivered. Some residents who fear infection have refused to share elevators with delivery workers, forcing them to haul packages up stairs. |
| 夜深人静时，经常会看到疲惫的快递员在公寓楼间穿梭，递送水果、瓶装水、圣诞装饰品和很多消费者如今更希望送上门的其他物品。有些担心感染的居民拒绝与快递员共用电梯，迫使他们不得不走楼梯。 |
| The pandemic has brought profits to couriers and logistics companies like CJ Logistics, Hanjin Shipping and Lotte. But categorized as self-employed, most of the country’s estimated 54,000 “taekbae gisa,” or home-delivery drivers, do not benefit from the labor laws that protect full-time corporate employees. Benefits such as overtime, paid vacation and insurance against on-the-job injuries are largely unavailable. |
| 这场疫情让CJ物流(CJ Logistics)、韩进海运(Hanjin Shipping)和乐天(Lotte)这样的快递及物流公司挣到了钱。但在韩国被归为个体经营者的约5.4万名上门送货司机中，大多数人无法享受保护企业全职员工的劳动法。诸如加班费、带薪休假和工伤保险等福利基本上是没有的。 |
| According to a September survey by the Center for Workers’ Health and Safety, a rights group, couriers work an average of 12 hours a day, six days a week. According to government data submitted to lawmakers, work-related injuries for couriers soared by 43 percent in the first half of the year. |
| 据人权组织劳工健康与安全中心(Center for Workers Health and Safety) 9月份的一项调查显示，快递员平均每天工作12小时，每周工作六天。提交给议员的政府数据显示，今年上半年，快递员的工伤数字飙升了43%。 |
| Couriers in the United States, Europe and China have gone on strike seeking better protections. In South Korea, they have staged strikes hoping to secure shorter hours and a “life with evenings.” |
| 美国、欧洲和中国的快递员已经开始罢工，以争取更好的保护。在韩国，他们举行了罢工，希望缩短工作时间，拥有“晚上的生活”。 |
| “We organized and fought back because we had no one to talk to,” said Park Ki-ryeon, 36, a courier since 2016. |
| “我们组织起来进行反击，是因为找不到可以对话的人，”自2016年就一直在做快递员的36岁的朴基连（音）表示。 |
| “We, too would like to keep warm indoors, like the people we serve,” Mr. Park said. “But many of us are not well educated and started this work with debts to pay. If we quit, we don’t have an alternative.” |
| “我们也想要在室内取暖，就跟我们所服务的人一样，”朴基连说。“但我们中的许多人没有受过良好的教育，开始做这一行时身背债务。如果辞职，我们就别无选择了。” |
| Ms. Choi became a delivery worker seven years ago after a divorce made her a single mother of two young children. She has hauled packages weighing up to 55 pounds apiece up and down stairs. She sometimes has to climb walls to make deliveries, because homeowners are out, with their gates locked, but want the parcels left inside. Couriers have been known to injure their ankles — or become the subject of police calls made by neighbors who mistake them for burglars. |
| 七年前，离了婚的崔智娜成了两个年幼小孩的单亲妈妈，那之后她就做了快递员。她曾经拖着最重达55磅的一件件包裹上下楼梯。有时还不得不爬墙送货，因为房主不在，大门上锁，但他们又想把包裹放在家里。快递员经常脚踝受伤，或者被邻居误认为窃贼，成为报警的对象。 |
| She said she liked the work because she could get home in time for her children to return from school, but the virus changed everything. Ms. Choi now delivers up to 370 parcels a day, 30 percent more than before the pandemic. She starts work at 6:30 a.m. and rarely gets home before 10 p.m. |
| 她说她喜欢这项工作，因为她能够赶在孩子们放学前回家，但是病毒改变了一切。崔智娜现在每天运送多达370个包裹，比大流行之前多了30％。她从早上六点半开始工作，很少在晚上10点之前回家。 |
| At the depot, container trucks rumbled in under the pre-dawn sky, bringing cargo from across South Korea. As what seemed like an endless stream of parcels of all shapes and sizes were unloaded, Ms. Choi and her colleagues gathered around a conveyor belt to search for packages with addresses in their districts. |
| 在仓库，货柜车在黎明前轰隆隆地驶来，带着来自韩国各地的货物。源源不断、形状大小各异的包裹被卸下。崔智娜和她的同事们聚集在一条传送带周围，寻找自己管辖范围的包裹。 |
| The deliveries would stretch well into the night. |
| 送货一直持续到深夜。 |
| Some logistics companies have apologized for the recent spate of deaths and promised to provide benefits, like medical checkups, and add more workers in phases to help shorten work hours and manage the increased volume. |
| 一些物流公司为最近一连串的死亡事件道歉，并承诺提供诸如体检之类的福利，并分阶段增加更多工人，以帮助缩短工作时间，管理增加的工作量。 |
| Mr. Moon’s government has vowed to introduce a five-day workweek and ban nighttime deliveries, admitting that his policies have not kept up with the growth of the delivery industry and that “the burden was concentrated in long hours and heavy workloads for couriers.” |
| 文在寅政府宣称，要实行五天工作制，并禁止夜间送货，他承认他的政策未能跟上快递业务的增长，“快递员集中承担了长时间工作和繁重工作量的负担。” |
| After the deaths generated headlines, people also began expressing sympathy for the couriers, leaving drinks and snacks at the door with notes saying, “It’s OK to be late.” |
| 死亡事件成为头条新闻之后，人们也开始对快递员表示同情，在门口留下饮料和零食，上面写着：“晚点到也没关系。” |
| “When strangers pass me on the streets, they say to me, ‘Please don’t die! We need you,’” Mr. Park said. But the reforms promised by logistics companies and the government have been too slow to arrive. |
| “当陌生人在街上与我擦肩而过时，他们对我说，’请别死！我们需要你，’”朴基连说。但是，物流公司和政府承诺的改革进展来得太慢了。 |
| When his grandmother died last month, Mr. Park said, he had to hire a replacement courier with his own money to deliver the parcels along his route just so he could take a half day off to mourn her. “We want change,” he said. “We are not working machines.” |
| 朴基连说，上个月他的祖母去世，为了休半天假，他不得不自掏腰包聘请一个快递员替自己送包裹。“我们想要改变，”他说。“我们不是机器。” |
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