Conference Interpreting Cannot Be Charged by The Hour.

Dear Colleagues,

We are constantly showered with comments and opinions on the way conference interpreters should charge for their services. Even though this is an issue settled long ago, some newcomers to the world of conference interpreting, mainly distance interpreting platforms and language agencies, are attempting to drop our professional business model and replace it with something that works for them, not the client or the interpreter.

Freelance professional conference interpreters have always charged by the day, but in the last two years, agencies and others who come from the world of community interpreting are trying to impose their system and offer to pay by the hour.

Court interpreters, healthcare interpreters, social services interpreters, and all other community interpreters are paid by the hour. That is a different business model that does not work for conference interpreting because the interpreting service is very different.

All community interpreters do a very important and difficult job; they work under conditions no conference interpreter would ever agree to, like noisy courtrooms, small confined areas in hospitals, and some clients who do not know, understand, or appreciate their work.

These is all true and admirable; however, community interpreters do the same type of work every day, often they even do the same repeatedly. Because of the repetitious nature of the task, and the similarities of all the assignments, they usually need little preparation. Court and healthcare interpreters often show up to courthouses and hospitals without even knowing what they will interpret that day. You arrive to court and then you know if your first assignment of the day is a divorce hearing, a felony arraignment, or a sentencing hearing. You do the job, and then you are assigned to another interpretation task. Yes, there are complicated cases and situations, and responsible interpreters try to learn the details of the assignment; yes, there is specialized terminology and procedures, but once you know them, by study or by repetition, all new cases will be an opportunity to apply what you already know.

But conference interpreter is different every day. Interpreters study, research, and practice for every assignment. Yesterday’s assignment was on mining, tomorrow’s will be on agriculture, and next week it will involve international trade. In average, conference interpreters prepare for two to two and a half days for each day they spend in the booth. Unlike community interpreting assignments, they face a very knowledgeable audience in a room where, even after all their study and preparation, they know the topic the least.

Community interpreting assignments that require little or no preparation can be paid by the hour with a minimum fee system. Often interpreters do not even work because court cases get dismissed, continued or settled, and patients do not show up for a doctor’s appointment. A guaranteed two-to-four-hour minimum fee seems like a fair agreement when interpreters set aside their time for an assignment that required no advanced preparation and did not happen.

Conference interpreters always work. Their conferences do not get canceled or postponed. Conference interpreters save a day for a client knowing they must prepare and work, even for distance interpreted events.

The community interpreting business model of charging by the hour with a minimum guaranteed works for court, healthcare and other similar assignments, but it is not a valid business model for conference interpreting.  

With the arrival of Remote Simultaneous Interpreting (RSI) many language agencies around for many years making their living in court and healthcare interpreting saw an opportunity to expand into a field new to them. Even those who claim they were always offering conference interpreting services, in reality were providing community interpreting with portable equipment or a table top. They imposed their community interpreting business model to conference interpreting and that did not work.

RSI also brought many court and healthcare interpreters to conference interpreting. These interpreters, used to charge by the hour, saw nothing abnormal when their known business model was offered to them in the world of conference interpreting. Some platforms saw this and followed by applying this impossible model to conference work performed by these community interpreters.

It must be understood that conference interpreting cannot be paid by the hour as determined by a business model that does not consider the reality of conference work. Veteran conference interpreters, and new colleagues who know and understand the profession, reject this model as it fosters complacency and lack of preparation to make a living on such unrealistic terms. Some will tell you that conference and community interpreting are not that different. The ones making that argument are usually community interpreters or agencies/platforms seeking a higher profit in conference interpreting, not the best human talent.

We often hear interpreters need to adapt to the changing times. That is true and expected; however, adapting to the new reality means mastering distance and hybrid conference interpreting instead of demanding in-person interpreting for all events. It does not mean accepting a new business model that does not consider the services rendered by a conference interpreter, imposed by business entities who want to expand beyond the world of community interpreting.

Ignoring court certifications is turning fashionable.

Dear colleagues:

Legal certainty is the foundation of any system of justice administration. Modern society cannot function in an environment where people are afraid to act because they ignore the outcome of their efforts. Human creativity and progress need a certainty that a set of actions will produce a desired outcome, and the peace of mind fostered by an absolute trust in an honest, capable and independent judge who will clarify what is confusing and decide what is contested according to law and equity.

All civilized nations enshrine these principles in their national constitution and create international courts of justice to address controversies that go beyond their own jurisdiction. To work, this system requires of honest, independent, capable, skilled, and knowledgeable professionals who serve as judges, attorneys and other officers of the court, including court interpreters.

No legal system can be fair when some are denied access to justice because of the language they speak, and no access to the administration of justice can be effective unless its services are provided by skilled professionals who have met rigorous standards set by the authority under the principles of equal justice uncompromised by expediency or convenience.

Every day we see how more nations adopt these principles, sometimes because of the realization of the truths above, and sometimes because the change is imposed by the unstoppable waive of globalization. Countries have changed their legal systems to incorporate these values, and as part of these changes, they have adopted legislation requiring court interpreters to be professional, ethical, skilled and knowledgeable. Some have called this process certification, others licensing, concession of patent, accreditation, etcetera.

Countries like the United States have developed a solid and reputable system of certification at both levels of government: federal and state.  Because the overwhelming majority of non-English speakers in the U.S. speak Spanish, all states and federal government have developed a certification process (licensing process in Texas) for Spanish language court interpreters. The federal government has issued federal court interpreter certifications in Navajo and Haitian Creole as well. To satisfy their local needs, states have adopted certifications for the most widely spoken languages, other than Spanish, in their jurisdiction; these certifications vary depending on the demographics of each state. Both, the federal and state judiciaries have adopted a system to classify court interpreters of languages without certification program as accredited or qualified.

Court interpreter certifications guarantee litigants and judges those officers of the court who provide interpreting services in a court procedure have demonstrated, through a rigorous scientific testing process, to have the minimum required skills, knowledge, and ethics to practice as professional certified court interpreters. Accredited and qualified court interpreters give litigants and judges an assurance that the federal or state system in charge of language access services was convinced of the skill, moral character and professionalism of these interpreters by alternate means to the certification process non-existent for that language combination.  It all boils down to the basic principle of legal certainty.

Many countries have a dual system of administration of justice: There is a judiciary as an independent branch of government that decides controversies between individuals, government entities, and in criminal cases. There is also a sui-generis administrative court system that exists not as a part of the judiciary or as an independent branch of government, but as an independent entity within the executive branch at both: federal and state levels. These administrative courts deal with civil law controversies of the administrative type where individuals dispute certain actions, benefits, entitlements, and rights that must be protected, conferred, or denied by an agency of the executive branch of government. The best known administrative courts in the United States are Immigration, Social Security and Workers’ Compensation.

Because these administrative courts are not part of the judicial branch of government, rules, policies and requirements pervasive in the judiciary do not extend to these so-called Article 1 Courts (because they are created by legislation, not the constitution) as opposed to Article 3 Courts (created by Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution). Rigorous criteria for court interpreter certification, created for legal certainty, are not applied or followed by most administrative courts, leaving the door open to those seeking shortcuts, opportunity, and financial gain with absolute disregard for judicial certainty and the best interests of the parties to a controversy.

A few weeks ago the Immigration Courts in the United States (Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR) publicly announced they were hiring Spanish language interpreters nationwide to work in the immigration courts. Although this would place these interpreters directly under the supervision and control of the court, a big improvement over having people providing interpreting services in immigration court under the supervision of SOSi, the well-known language services provider that earned the contract by bidding lower than the rest, it is still bad policy that will eventually harm those who go to immigration court seeking relief.

EOIR’s announcement requires no reputable universally accepted court interpreter certification (federal or state level). It only requires candidates to pass a test with no scientific validation offered online.

This tendency to retain lesser qualified individuals for matters that could eventually affect someone’s life forever, such as a removal or an asylum case, is echoed by those who also settle for less interpreting quality in exchange for more money and argue that non-certified court interpreters, even if healthcare certified, or those who take cover under the unrecognized so-called “community interpreter” credential, are qualified to interpret depositions!

Depositions are a very delicate legal proceeding because they take place outside the presence of a judge. This means they require of an even more experienced certified court interpreter, not a lesser qualified paraprofessional. The most complex litigation, the ones involving enormous amounts of money, the ones often dealing with conflict of jurisdictions and legal systems, those governed by international conventions, and for those very reasons, the ones where interpreters earn the highest fees, always start with depositions very difficult even for many seasoned court interpreters.

Multi-million dollar lawsuits, intellectual property infringements, trade wars between nations, the livelihood of an injured worker who will never work again, removal proceedings that will keep a person outside the country for the rest of her/his life, asylum hearings, often an applicant’s last hope to protect her/his life, liberty and family unity are not less complicated cases. We cannot leave the administration of justice for those who do not speak the language of the court, judicial or administrative, in the hands of greedy agencies, ignorant unscrupulous authorities, and opportunists and incompetent paraprofessionals. I now invite you to share your thoughts on this topic and the disturbing tendencies we see.

What assignments should interpreters take?

Dear Colleagues:

Sometimes, after turning down a job offer from an individual who had contacted me by email or phone, I wonder if my life would be easier if I turned into a “yes man” and accepted many offers that come my way. It would save me the time I spend explaining why I cannot work under the circumstances proposed, or avoiding all those baseless arguments and laughable excuses from ignorant prospective clients and greedy multinational agencies. No doubt it would be good for my health.  I would have more clients, interpret every day, and turn into the darling of all agencies and professional associations. I would probably be “Tony the Yes Man”, “the one who does not make any waves.” “Mr. Takes it in the chin”.

Unfortunately, I immediately remember that I am a professional; that acquiring my set of skills and knowledge has been difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. At this point I always decide not to be the “lovable loser”.

I understand there are many interpreters; government agencies are looking for ways to save money, and private corporations want to be profitable. This only means it is harder to get an assignment; that we must put a bigger effort into finding good clients and well-paid assignments. Professional interpreting is not a hobby; it is a business, and in that world worthwhile things are not free. We must behave like businesspeople; we cannot make everybody happy by accepting any assignment that comes across our table, and we cannot make the agency recruiter’s life easier by giving in to unspeakable working conditions.

We must never forget who we are and what we do. We must protect our profession even when facing a human tragedy. I saw how some of my colleagues, well-intentioned, gave in to the indiscriminate use of bilinguals instead of interpreters during the Mexican earthquakes and Caribbean hurricanes. Some considered that demanding interpreters was inappropriate because of the urgent need for interpreting services. I think they wasted an opportunity to showcase the interpreters’ work to many people who had never heard of interpreting in their lives. I applaud those colleagues who held their ground and defended the use of professional interpreter services.

Recently, I turned down a job offer to interpret for some Spanish speakers, members of another country’s armed forces, because the assignment did not pay for the days off between sessions when interpreting was not required, and because I got no assurance that during the flying lessons there would be a flight instructor on board with direct access to the aircraft instruments if a mistake by the student occurs.  The agency recruiter could not understand why I was not willing to risk my life for an assignment that cared so little for the interpreter they had not even bother to check and see if there would be a licensed pilot on board.

I also declined an offer from a small agency to interpret simultaneously non-stop for three hours by myself. The agency rep thought I was a prima donna, and even offered me more money to take the job. I did not.  Another agency’s “project manager” got mad because after she booked me (and a colleague) for a conference, two weeks went by and we got no materials from her. When asked on the status of the assignment, she replied that the event organizer had selected a different agency, and for that reason she had not contacted the interpreters. She even said that it was the interpreters’ duty to call the agency to see if an event had been cancelled or not!

When you add these incidents to the many times when the agency coordinator argues with you because you want too much money and the agency is offering an “…amount that many would love to make at work…” ; when they reply with sarcastic emails insinuating that you must be out of your mind to ask for the money you quoted for your services; or those occasions when after they explain the assignment for hours, you finally get to say a word, and let them know your fee and they reply with a simple: “oh, thank you” and hang up.

I am sure that I just described another day at the office for many of you, so the question is: What assignments should I take?

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to such a complex question. Part of the answer must do with experience, language combination, the type of interpreting you do, and the part of the world where you live. I will let you figure out that part of the question by yourself or jointly with colleagues in similar circumstances as yours.

The part I can answer, because it has universal application is straight forward: Develop a portfolio of direct clients and take very good care of them. It is difficult to find these clients but they exist. I know because I am fortunate enough to work with many. The important thing is to know where to look for them and how to spot them from a mile away.

The best clients come from referrals from other satisfied clients, colleagues, and technicians. A good story starts like this: “I am contacting you because I was referred to you by…” or “…I want to retain your services because I attended an event you interpreted in the past…”

These people looked for you because of your skills and the quality of your service. They value what you do and want YOU to interpret.

A bad story generally begins with: “…I got your name from the ATA (or any other association) directory and I was wondering if you are still a translator…”

Screen these individuals for only sixty seconds and politely end the conversation if they do not look promising.  These prospective clients do not understand who you are. To them, you are just another name on a directory under the language they need and from the location they want. They do not know what you do, and they value your profession so little they even wonder if you are still “translating” because, since you are bilingual, this must be a thing you were doing “in between jobs”.  I know some people think that you can get some good clients this way, but it depends on what you consider a good client. So far, I have never found one top client this way.

The other thing to consider, because of its universal application, is the place where you are in the world.  Unlike translation, good interpreting assignments do not happen in small towns or mid-size cities. They are in the big cities and not in all of them.  If you live in a rural area or a small city, and you want to take the best assignments, you must consider moving to a bigger city. You may need to decide between a certain lifestyle, including few professional competitors and life in the big city where you will be swimming with the sharks. Do your research, and when you do it, make sure there is a market for your language combination in the big market you are targeting. Nothing is worse than moving to another place to find out that your languages are not in demand.

Finally, think of what you want to do. People find certain things very important, even if there is not a lot of money in that field. Do not fool yourself, you will never make a lot of money working as a community interpreter or practicing in a small city, but maybe that is not a crucial factor to you. Some colleagues find working in the community assisting people with little or no money more rewarding than a high-profile wealthy client in the big city.  Some interpreters prefer less money and not so famous clients over constant traveling and spending most of the time away from home.

In conclusion, we should all seek clients that will appreciate our work, who select us for who we are as individuals, offer us professional working conditions (treat us with respect, provide materials, understands the need for team interpreting and good technology in a comfortable booth, etc.) and pay professional fees. We should protect the profession and reject prospective clients looking for anybody on a list, disrespect us, want to pay us as laborers, and do not offer the appropriate working conditions mentioned above. The rest are personal judgments we all need to make depending on the lifestyle we want to have and the service we want to provide. I now invite you to share with the rest of us your comments on this topic.

How can I get work as conference interpreter?

Dear Colleagues:

The title of this blog entry is a question that I am asked everywhere all the time.  As I travel, I come across many great colleagues, some who just graduated and are now starting their professional careers, some veteran interpreters with a long experience in other fields such as court, healthcare, or military interpreting, and others who, for other reasons, have decided to try their luck as conference interpreters.

The story I hear is basically the same all the time: “I really want to be a conference interpreter, but there is no work”, or “who should I talk to if I want to work as a conference interpreter?”

These questions are valid, and they do need an answer, but before we get to that, I would like to emphasize something else: conference interpreting is difficult and very demanding. Because of its diversity of subject matters, the importance of the events to be interpreted, and the quality-demanding audience that listens to your rendition, it is like no other field. Although interpreting in other areas can be extremely hard, and sometimes it could be high-profile, no other interpreting work requires it every time.

I want to make sure that you understand that I am not saying other fields are easier; in fact sometimes they are more difficult as they demand an accurate professional rendition under adverse circumstances such as noisy courtrooms, military bases, and hospitals; and in the case of court interpreting, they require of a complete rendition with the interpreter having very little time to do it (as it happens with the short consecutive mode that is used in court for the testimony of a witness). I am just making the point that conference interpreting often requires that the interpreter work with a speech produced by a very sophisticated speaker, and (unlike other interpretations where sometimes the target’s native language skills are somewhat limited) it is always rendered to a very knowledgeable audience that, although monolingual, can easily recognize if the registry, terminology, grammar, general vocabulary, and skills of the interpreter are up to the level of the event to be interpreted.

For these reasons, it is quite important to be honest about our skills’ level at present time, and based on that answer, decide if we can move on to answer the question on the title above, or if we should work on our craft first, and postpone the question for later.

There is no single answer that tells us how to get work as conference interpreters. It is very different to work as staff or independent contractor for an international organization such as the OAS, UN, or the European Parliament, where you have to go through certain established protocols and systems, including testing and sometimes background investigations. The criteria to be satisfied and the approval process is also different for those interpreters who want to do conferences for government entities as staffers or independents. For these jobs, testing and security clearances are usually required, always following a process determined by the appropriate country government or particular agency. There is plenty of information on how to try to get these assignments, so we will not cover them further in this post. We will concentrate on how to get conference work as an independent contractor in the private sector.

Conference work in the private sector may include interpreting for corporations, colleges, professional associations, or political and special interest groups.  The events where interpreting is required can go from enormous conferences, business negotiations, professional lectures, and college courses, to political rallies, press briefings, or commencement speeches.  The only thing conference work never includes is the so-called “conference work” that in reality is community interpreting.

I am referring to the assignments to interpret a neighborhood association’s meeting, the planning of an action by a community organization, a recruitment effort by a religious organization, and similar jobs. They do not qualify as conference interpreting because they are done under precarious circumstances such as lack of interpreting equipment, even a booth or at least a table-top. In this so-called “conference interpreting” assignments the interpreter is expected to do the job in sub-standard working conditions and without any quality control.  It is not unusual to find an interpreter working solo on these projects, and there is a practice of mixing professional interpreters with para-professionals in an attempt to mask the lack of quality in the rendition. Organizers of these events believe that they can attract struggling professional interpreters hungry for conference work, and pay them a miserable fee, if they advertise the job as “conference interpreting”, even though it is not.

The first thing qualified professional interpreters need to do if they want conference work is to physically be where the action is. Unlike healthcare, community, and court interpreting, conference interpreting does not happen in every city and town. These are large expensive events, require of planning and take place for a purpose: dissemination of knowledge, motivation of a sales force, rallying behind a specific idea, candidate or organization, presentation of a newly discovered scientific finding, and so on.

Obviously, these events need to be held in cities with infrastructure, airports, train stations, hotels, convention centers, universities, and many times, other unrelated attractions such as beaches, amusement parks, or historical sites.  Conference interpreters need to be in these places; ready, willing and able to jump into an assignment at a moment’s notice. Event organizers, interpreting agencies, and direct clients will always go for the local talent first. It is more flexible and cost-effective. How can an agency call you at the last moment, or how can a colleague ask you to cover for her in case of an emergency, unless you live in the city where the conference is taking place?

Even in the age of remote conference interpreting, clients will go for the local interpreter first because that is the person they know.  It is possible to remotely interpret a conference from a small town anywhere in the world, but it is next to impossible for the agency or event organizer to find these interpreters in a place far away. Interpreters need to be where the assignments are, at least to be seen and acknowledged as part of the very competitive conference interpreter community.

My many years of experience doing this work have taught me that the international organization and government agency work in the United States is in Washington, D.C. and New York City.  I also learned, and statistics back it up, that the private sector conference work in America is in Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando, New Orleans, Honolulu, and Miami.  My experience elsewhere, with my language combination, tells me that the action takes place in Cancun, Panama City, Buenos Aires, London, Dubai, Tokyo, and Kuala Lumpur.  Yes, there are secondary markets, many of them in the Western United States, but they do not have many year-round, simultaneous, world class events. It is not the same to host an annual big event in a city, or to have five to ten big events at the same time in the same city, several at the same venue, as it happens in Chicago’s McCormick Place.  I lived in a mid-size city in the Midwestern United States for a few years, and I did not get any conference work to speak of. Professionally speaking, those were wasted years that I will never get back.  To summarize: regular conference interpreting work requires relocation to one of these cities.

The next important thing to get work is to be able and willing to travel at any time, and with no advanced notice. I have gone from watching TV at home to an airplane bound for Europe with an hour’s notice. In fact, as I write this entry, I am getting ready for a trip abroad to cover an assignment I just got yesterday afternoon. Traveling for conference work means several things: (1) You need to be free to travel all the time without any personal, health, or family obstacles or complications; (2) You must be able to travel anywhere. This means that you have to be eligible to get visas to most countries in the world, and you always need to have a valid passport. (3) You need to be a good businessperson with resources to invest in your career.  This means that you must have the financial resources to buy a plane ticket and hotel room, many times at the most expensive rate because of the late purchase, knowing that it will take weeks, and sometimes months, to be reimbursed by the client. If nothing else, you need to have a healthy international credit card. Personally, just in case I have no time to do it at the last minute, I keep at home enough money in the most popular foreign currencies (euro, pound, Canadian dollar, yen, Mexican peso, etc.) so I can leave right away.  As you can see, conference interpreting is a career that demands a lot, and it is not for everybody.

Finally, to be able to get work, an interpreter who meets all the characteristics above, needs to get in touch with the most reputable agencies, event organizers, big corporations, and offer his services. These interpreters will not get any work, but they cannot give up. They need to insist every few months and systematically contact these major players until one day they get the call. It will probably be because a regular conference interpreter got sick, died, had a conflict or an emergency, and nobody else from the trusted regular roster was available. It is then that the agency will get a hold of the most enthusiastic new interpreter who never let them forget him, despite the fact that he did not get any work for a couple of years.

Then, it is totally up to you: the new interpreter, to be ready, prepared and willing to give the performance of your life. You will only have one chance to show your skills in the booth. This is the day when you must leave a good impression on the agency, event organizer, technicians, and more importantly, the other interpreters you will work with. These colleagues will give feedback to the client, and their opinion carries a lot of weight. They will also become your source of referrals if you are good. Be an excellent booth mate and shine.

One last thing: Please do not charge rock bottom fees for your services. It does not matter how excited you are with your first conference job.  The excitement will be gone in a month and you will have to live with your fees for a long time. A new interpreter who enters the market charging lower fees will soon become the pariah of the profession. Nobody will want to work with you. You must understand that charging less not only hurts you, it hurts your colleagues, and it diminishes the profession.

I hope this long answer helps some of you interested in this fabulous career of conference interpreter. I now invite you to share your thoughts on this topic.

U.S. Immigration Court interpreters’ other enemy.

Dear Colleagues:

About two months ago the California immigration court interpreters started a movement to force the hand of SOSi and the EOIR with the goal of achieving better work conditions, a professional pay for the services rendered, and to keep the authorities from hiring new interpreters and interpretation students for a lower fee.  This entry will not deal with the merits or the outcome of such movement. We will talk about the elephant in the room: the big obstacle to the professionalization of the interpreting services in American immigration courts that can be changed by the interpreters themselves.

I know that this blog entry will make some uncomfortable, and I do not like to do that. Unfortunately, my life-long effort to fight for the professionalization of interpreting does not allow me to keep silent. To me, that would be equivalent to betraying my own professional standards. I write this piece with respect and with no desire to offend, knowing that by the time some of you finish reading this article, you will feel offended. I only ask you to reflect on what bothered you, and honestly acknowledge, at least to yourself, that you are not really up to save the profession (as a true profession, not as a laborer’s occupation) in the immigration court arena.

For several years now, there has been a tendency to credentialize interpreters who provide services to the public, who perform a fiduciary function.  Because of the wide variety of languages regularly spoken in the United States, and due to the millions of people who do not speak English at all, or at least good enough to go through a legal or medical process, most efforts have been applied to the certification of Spanish interpreters, by far the most popular foreign language nationwide, and finding other solutions for the other languages.

Court interpreters had an early start and developed the federal Spanish court interpreter certification exam. Many States followed and the States’ Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification was born, later taking us to the current Language Access Advisory Committee (LAAC) and Council of Language Access Coordinators (CLAC).

Healthcare interpreters followed suit and developed two different interpreter certification programs (the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters: CCHI, and the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters’ CMI program) both of them widely spread and recognized throughout the United States. Granted, the term “medical interpreter” to describe the functions of these professionals is less accurate that “healthcare interpreter”, and compared to the court interpreter certification federal and state-level exams, both healthcare certifications are way behind in content and degree of difficulty; but unlike court interpreter certification programs, healthcare interpreters have achieved something extremely valuable that court interpreters can only dream of: an examination administered by an independent entity, just like lawyers and physicians, instead of the uncomfortable government-run court interpreter programs that always raise the issue of the real conflict of interests when the entity certifying interpreters is the same one who hires them.

At any rate, healthcare interpreters in the United States now have a way to prove that they are minimally qualified to do their job, that they adhere to a code of ethics, and that they comply with continuing education requirements that will keep them current in language, interpreting, terminology, and medical issues. In other words, healthcare interpreters sitting at the table with court interpreters can now bring up their credential and feel at the same professional level than their legal colleagues, instead of having to give a speech about how certifications do not mean a thing, that it is working in the trenches that makes you a good interpreter, and that your field is so unique that no existing certification exam could test what is needed to work in that field.

Well, dear friends and colleagues, this takes me straight to a very real, and somewhat uncomfortable problem, faced everyday by immigration court interpreters in the United Stets: They have no certification program requirement to work in court, and for that reason, there is no way to prove a certain minimum level, thus allowing bad interpreters to work in the immigration court system for years.

Court interpreting is a highly skilled occupation that requires of a professional provider. By its nature, it is also a fiduciary function where a judge, attorneys, respondents and witnesses must trust the knowledge and skill of the interpreter who will speak throughout the proceedings while at least half of those present will not understand a word of what was said. It is an awesome responsibility that cannot be left to the paraprofessional or the untested.

Presently, all Article Three courts in the United States, at all levels (federal and state) have a Spanish language court interpreter certification program that includes minimum requirements to take the exam, passing a comprehensive and difficult test (at least at the federal level), observing a code of ethics, and (with the exception of the federal program) complying with continuing education in the legal, interpreting, and language fields to be able to keep the certification. These courts are part of the Judiciary Branch of government.

Immigration Courts are not a part of the Judiciary. They are in the Executive Branch of government and are referred to as Article One courts because of their legal basis in the U.S. Constitution. The thing is, my colleagues, these courts deal with societal, family, and personal values and interests as important as those heard by Article Three judges. They are courts of law that abide by a set of substantive and adjective laws.  For practical reasons, they operate just like any judicial court: there is a judge, there are parties (one of them will be the government just like in criminal law), there are witnesses, and there are attorneys.  Although the controversies are different, immigration proceedings also include a first appearance, motions hearings, a court trial, and a verdict. There is a burden of proof, rules of evidence and procedure, and the possibility of an appeal to a higher court (Board of Immigration Appeals). The fact that the terminology calls these hearings “master calendar”, “bond redetermination”, “credible fear”, or “individual hearing” does not make much difference.   The cases are as different from those interpreted in an Article Three courtroom, as a criminal case differs from a civil or a family law proceeding.

The skills required to interpret are the same as in any other type of court proceeding: There is a need for simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, as well as sight translation. Interpreters use equipment just the same (in fact, in many cases even the same brand), and the expected ethical and professional conduct of the interpreter is the same.

It is a fact that immigration court interpreters are disrespected by their client: the EOIR on a daily basis. There is no denial that they make little money, work long hours, and they do it solo, regardless of the complexity or duration of a hearing. It is also well-known that they are treated in humiliating fashion by being forced to jump through many administrative hoops that no other court interpreter will ever face, in part because they are subcontracted by a multinational agency that tries to keep control over the interpreters without physically being at the courthouse, but also in part because interpreters are not considered professionals, they are not acknowledged as officers of the court.

I firmly believe that the only way to earn the credibility they need so much, Spanish language (for now, and ideally all widely used language combinations later) immigration court interpreters in the United States must demand a court interpreter certification requirement to be able to work.  They need it for their credibility among their peers and with the public opinion.  Once they have a credential, together with a code of ethics and continuing education requirements, they will be in a much better position to negotiate with anybody.

Because immigration court is a federal matter, and the services provided by the interpreter are the same as the ones in all federal courts, I think that the certification they need to have is the already existing FCICE. It would be very simple, all they need to do is convince the EOIR of this need. The exam already exists, all these interpreters would need to do is register and take the test. Then, if both, EOIR and the immigration interpreter community think it is appropriate, there could be a short immigration terminology exam (although I don’t think it necessary just like current certified court interpreters do not need to test every time they interpret a different kind of hearing. Part of an interpreter’s duty is to get ready for an assignment and that professional obligation should be enough).  This would be the best way to demonstrate that their simultaneous, consecutive, and sight skills are at a minimum level to deserve that trust we discussed above. In fact, by getting EOIR to agree, immigration interpreters would have until the Summer of 2018 to take and pass the written portion of the federal exam, and then until the Summer of 2019 to take and pass the oral test. In the meantime, it could be agreed that those currently working would continue to do so until the Summer of 2018.

This solution would immediate put immigration court interpreters at the same negotiating level as their Article Three federal counterparts; In fact, it would benefit everyone: Currently federally certified Spanish court interpreters would consider working in immigration court as the pay would be the same (or almost), and newly federally certified immigration court interpreters would have the opportunity to broaden their professional horizons and work in federal courts.

Of course, this means that two things must happen: First, the certification exam cannot be a “Mickey Mouse test” like the ones offered to immigration court interpreters by multinational agency contractors; they have no scientific value and a very poor reputation. And second, immigration court interpreters need to understand that those who do not pass the exam must go, regardless of the time they have been a fixture at the immigration courthouse. Any other “solution” would defeat the purpose and discredit the credential. This, my friends, is the “other” enemy of the U.S. immigration interpreter: the bad interpreter who has never been able to pass a court certification exam, knows that they never will, and spend all their time and energy trying to convince others that certifications are worthless, exams are rigged, and that the only way to learn the profession in in the courtroom.  These people have to go away. They are like a cancer that is slowing down the progress of the rest of their colleagues.

To argue “unity” to protect and keep these individuals is misleading. Professional unity can only happen among professionals, and the individuals I just described above may be paraprofessionals but they are definitely not professional material. Imagine for one moment going to the hospital for emergency surgery and being told that the person who will operate on you has never taken or passed the Board, but has a lot of experience. Would you let this non-doctor cut you open?

I understand it is very hard to set aside our emotions and empathy for these individuals, but it is time to think of yourselves, your families and your peers. Unless you want to continue to struggle as an immigration court interpreter, you have to get certified. A decision to dodge the certification issue, or to settle for a lower standard of certification, because someone who cannot pass the test convinced you to support other options, will be a vote for the status quo, sacrificing the good ones to protect those who do not deserve to be there.

Understanding the Electoral College in the United States.

Dear colleagues:

During my career I have noticed that every four years during the Presidential election season in the United States many interpreters are faced with the Electoral College topic even when their assignments are non-political.  Because of its American uniqueness, this topic presents a challenge to many colleagues who usually work outside the United States and to others who live in the country but grew up somewhere else.  In fact, the Electoral College is one of those issues that many Americans do not fully understand, even if they vote every four years.  Interpreters cannot interpret what they do not understand, and in a professional world ruled by the market, where the Clinton and Trump campaigns are dominating broadcasts and headlines, this topic will continue to appear on the radar screen. Therefore, a basic knowledge of this legal-political process should come in handy every four years.

Because we are in a very “different” campaign and Election Day will be here before we know it, I decided to put my legal background and my passion for history to work:

Every four years when an American citizen goes to the polls on a Tuesday in November to elect the new president of the United States, that individual does not vote for any of the presidential candidates. We Americans vote for a preference (Republican, Democratic and occasionally other) and for electors who will go to Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, in the month of December to cast all electoral votes from that state, in favor of the candidate who represents the preference of the majority of the state voters as expressed on that Tuesday in November.  In other words, we vote for the people who will go to Washington D.C., to vote on our behalf for the presidential candidate who received the most direct votes from the citizens of that state during the general election.  After the November election, those electors are pledged to the candidate who received the most votes in that state.  The result: We have direct vote elections in each state, and then we have the final election in December when the states vote as instructed by the majority of its citizens. It is like a United Nations vote. Think of it like this: Each state elects its presidential favorite; that person has won the presidential election in that state. Now, after the November election is over, the states get together in December as an Electoral College and each of them votes. This is the way we determine a winner. Each state will vote as instructed, honoring the will of its citizenry.  We do not have proportional representation in the United States.

Historically and culturally this country was built on the entrepreneurial spirit: Those who risk everything want everything, and when they succeed, all benefits should go their way. We are an “all or nothing” society. That is even reflected on our sports. All popular sports invented and played in the United States have a winner and a loser by the end of the game: We do not like ties because we associate a tie with mediocrity. A baseball game can go on forever until a team wins.  We do the same in politics. Once the citizens have voted, the winner gets all the benefits, in this case all the electoral votes; it does not matter if he or she won by a million votes or by a handful. You may remember how President George W. Bush was elected to his first term; he won the state of Florida by a very small margin, but winner takes it all, therefore all of Florida’s electoral votes went to him and he became the 43^rd. President of the United States.  Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams got to the White House with a smaller margin than George W. Bush.

I mentioned earlier that we like the principle of winner takes it all. Although that is true, we are a country of fairness and justice with such diversity that the only way to achieve this goal is through a balance of the rights of the people on one side, and those of the states on the other. (For those who have a difficult time understanding why the states have rights separate from the people, please imagine the United States as a mini-world where each state is an independent country. Then think of your own country and answer this question: Would you like a bigger or more populated foreign country to impose its will over your country, or would you like for all countries to be treated as equals?) In December when the electors or delegates from each state meet as an electoral college in Washington D.C. to cast their state’s electoral votes, all states have a voice, they are all treated as equal.  This is the only way that smaller states are not overlooked; their vote counts.

We find the final step to achieve this electoral justice to the states of the United States of America (all fifty states and territories that make this country) and to the citizens of the country in the number of electoral votes that a state has; in other words, how many electors can a state send to Washington D.C. in November.  The answer is as follows:  The constitution of the United States establishes that there will be a House of Representatives (to represent the people of the United States) integrated by 435 members elected by the people of the district where they live. These districts change with the shifts in population but additional seats are never added to the House.  When the population changes, the new total population are divided by 435 and that gives you the new congressional district. The only limitations: An electoral district cannot cross state lines (state borders) therefore, occasionally we will have a district slightly larger or slightly smaller, and every state must have at least one electoral district (one house member) regardless of its population.    The American constitution establishes that there will be a Senate (to represent the 50 states) integrated by 2 representatives or members from each state for a total of 100 senators elected by all the citizens of that particular state. When new states have been admitted to the Union (the last time was 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii became states number 49 and 50 respectively) the senate grows by two new members.

As you can see, all states have the same representation in the Senate (2 senators each) regardless of the state’s size or population. The House of Representatives on the other hand, has more members from the states with larger population, but all states have at least one representative in the house. This way the American system makes sure that the will of the majority of the people is heard in Congress (House of Representatives) and it assures the 50 states that all of them, even the smaller ones, will be heard as equals in the Senate. You need both houses of Congress to legislate.

Going back to the Electoral College, the number of electoral votes each state has is the same as its number of Senators and Representatives. The total number of Senators and Representatives is 535 (435 Representatives and 100 Senators) Washington D.C. is not a state, therefore it has no Representatives or Senators, but it has 3 electoral votes to put it on equal footing with the smaller states for presidential elections. Therefore, the total number of electoral votes is 538.  Because of this totals, and because of the American principle of winner takes it all that applies to the candidate who wins the election in a state, to win a presidential election, a candidate must reach 270 electoral votes.  This is the reason why California, our most populated state, has 55 electoral votes (53 Representatives and 2 Senators) and all smaller states have 3 (remember, they have 2 Senators and at least one Representative in the House)

The next time you have to interpret something about the Electoral College in the United States remember how it is integrated, and think of our country as 50 separate countries who have an internal election first, and then vote as states, equal to all other states, on the second electoral round in December.  Because on November 8 of this year we will know who won each state, we will be celebrating the election of a new president, even though the Electoral College will not cast its votes for another month. It is like knowing how the movie ends before you see it.

 

Electoral votes by state Total: 538;

majority needed to elect president and vice president: 270

State	number of votes		State	number of votes		State	number of votes
Alabama	9		Kentucky	8		North Dakota	3
Alaska	3		Louisiana	9		Ohio	20
Arizona	10		Maine	4		Oklahoma	7
Arkansas	6		Maryland	10		Oregon	7
California	55		Massachusetts	12		Pennsylvania	21
Colorado	9		Michigan	17		Rhode Island	4
Connecticut	7		Minnesota	10		South Carolina	8
Delaware	3		Mississippi	6		South Dakota	3
District of Columbia	3		Missouri	11		Tennessee	11
Florida	27		Montana	3		Texas	34
Georgia	15		Nebraska	5		Utah	5
Hawaii	4		Nevada	5		Vermont	3
Idaho	4		New Hampshire	4		Virginia	13
Illinois	21		New Jersey	15		Washington	11
Indiana	11		New Mexico	5		West Virginia	5
Iowa	7		New York	31		Wisconsin	10
Kansas	6		North Carolina	15		Wyoming	3

The expenses all interpreters must charge to the client.

Dear Colleagues:

One of the questions I get the most from students and new colleagues has to do with interpreter fees and expenses. We have covered professional fees from several perspectives in prior posts, but so far we have never really discussed the expenses interpreters should pass on to the client.

I write this entry with my conference interpreter colleagues in mind.  Other interpreters can certainly benefit from this post, but they should always keep in mind that expense reimbursement in their professional practice might be governed or constrained by other considerations such as contractual limitations, government or institutional policies, and legislation.

If you work full time as a conference interpreter, or if you mainly do other type of interpreting, but you accept conference work on weekends, after hours, or during the summer vacation; mainly if you are new to the field, but also if you are a veteran who simply never figured out what expenses to charge to the client, this entry will put you on the right track.

Keep in mind that we will not deal with our professional fees here. That is a separate issue. You should have a set fee that you charge per day and per half-a-day of interpreting.  In the past we have discussed how to arrive to the right fee and what to consider when calculating it.  Some of you have attended my seminars on that precise topic. Remember, you must charge the professional fee for the service you render, and you should never have more than one fee for all clients (except for government or corporate professional service contracts where you agreed to a lower fee in exchange for consistency, volume, prestige, or many other considerations). For now, let’s set the fees aside, and concentrate on those expenses necessary to provide the service that the agency, government office, corporate entity, or end client must reimburse you after the service has been provided.

Notice that I am talking of reimbursement and not advance. I do this because that is the standard business practice and you should be prepared to work that way. Oftentimes, interpreters can lose a good client, or close an important door, simply because they asked for an expenses advance. We should always be prepared to cover these costs upfront. A good conference interpreter who is also good in business should always have money set aside for a plane ticket across the ocean, a hotel reservation, and transportation and food. Naturally, when dealing with new clients whose reputation is unknown to you (after a diligent inquiry on your part) it is always advisable to ask for an advance not just for expenses, but also for part of our fee.

As I said, in an overwhelming majority of assignments, you will be expected to pay first, and be reimbursed later, generally at the same time that your professional fees are paid; sometimes because of the accounting practice of the corporate or governmental client, reimbursement may take quite longer than the payment of your professional fee. You need to be prepared for this. Having an amount available to cover these costs while being reimbursed should be considered as a business investment on your part.

The question is: What expenses should I be reimbursed for?

First, if the assignment requires you to travel away from home, and your trip will be on the day before and the day after the event, you should charge one half a day of your interpreting fee for each of those two days. In other words, if you interpreted a conference that lasted three days, you should charge fees equivalent to four days of work:

½ day fee for travel day to assignment + 3 days of interpreting + ½ day fee for travel day back from the assignment = 4 days of interpreting fees

Next, you must be reimbursed for the airfare, train fare, or bus fare you paid to get to the out of town conference and back. Usually, the client expects you to ask for an economy ticket reimbursement, but in extremely long trips, you should ask for business class reimbursement, especially if you are going to work right after you land from crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific. As I have suggested in past posts, you should have a preferred airline where you are a frequent flyer so you can get upgrades to business or first class with your miles while the client is reimbursing you for the economy ticket. Please make sure to include here all other flight-related charges such as luggage fees, airport fees and taxes, visa fees when applicable, that you disbursed in order to get to the out of town venue.

You should also request a reimbursement of all hotel expenses that have to do with lodging: room fare, reservation processing fee, internet service in the room, and so on. Things like room service or pay-per-view movies in the hotel room cannot and should not be included in the reimbursement request. You should pick a business hotel, not a luxury hotel (unless the assignment requires it).

To have an idea of the price range you can charge to the client, in the United States, use the table of the GSA – Internal Revenue Service. It clearly states the maximum rate per room allowed for business travel by city and state.  http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/104877

Ground transportation should also be a part of your reimbursement, taxis from airports to hotels and back, and taxi rides from hotels to the event and back should always be reimbursed. In some cases, the client will even pay for ground transportation from your home to your town’s airport and back. It is possible, but you should negotiate it before you include these taxi payments in your reimbursement requests. Sometimes the client may want you to ride a passenger shuttle from the airport, and others could even suggest that you take the subway or another urban public transportation. I do not like that, but you should negotiate it with the client.

You must request a daily allowance for meals (Per Diem) for every day that you are away from home (travel and interpreting days). To eliminate the hassle of collecting receipts for every meal you have, in the United Stets, refer to the table of the GSA – Internal Revenue Service. It clearly states the Per Diem allowed by city and state.  http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/104877

If you are based in the United States and are traveling to a foreign country to provide the interpreting service, instead of following the table above, you will need to base your hotel and Per Diem expenses on the list that the United States Department of State publishes every year. It also contains the appropriate amounts by country and city. https://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem.asp

Although I do not exactly know what requirements are needed to follow the same practice for those of you based in a European Union country, At least you can refer to the E.U. Per Diem list by country.

https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sites/devco/files/perdiem-rate-20150318.pdf

The following list can be used by those of you who live in Mexico: http://www.cualtos.udg.mx/sites/default/files/adjuntos/tarifas_viaticos_nacionales.pdf

Finally, you should be reimbursed for all other work-related expenses needed to provide the professional service such as parking fees, car rentals and gasoline, highway, tunnel and bridge tolls, photocopies, etc.

You should save all receipts or all other reimbursable expenses: airfare, taxis, hotels, etc. Even if the client does not ask for them, and you should always try to get reimbursed by the mere presentation of your professional fees and expenses invoice detailing reimbursable costs by category, it is a good practice to keep them in case they are needed, and for tax purposes as well.

It is possible that the client may offer to purchase the plane tickets, pay for the hotel directly, they may take you out to eat all meals, and so on. That practice is also acceptable, and in such cases you should only ask to be reimbursed for those costs that you paid for.

I hope you find this information helpful, and I sincerely expect you to pass all of these expenses to the client. That is how professionals work. I now invite you to post your comments regarding this very important part of our professional practice.

Are they trying to fool the interpreters and translators?

Dear Colleagues:

We have been under constant and merciless attacks from the big multinational language “industry” corporations for several years. These uninvited guests at the professional language services table have stubbornly fought to take away the market from the professionals who should service the clients through systematically minimizing the role of the interpreter and translator, and dehumanizing the profession by launching a campaign to convince the weak and uninformed that what we do is an “industry”, not a profession.

In the past we have discussed the oddity of having pharmaceutical companies in the same professional associations with the physicians, and we have talked of the way attorneys defend their craft so it continues to be known as the legal profession, not the legal “industry”. Sadly, as you know, there are individual interpreters, translators, and even professional associations in our field that have decided to tear down that barrier erected by all professions to protect both: the end client of the professional service and the professional service provider, and have happily commingled professional interests and concerns with those of corporate entities whose sole objective is to cut costs, provide a borderline service, as long as it is legal and acceptable, and profit as much as possible.  This translates into often deplorable working conditions for interpreters and translators and substandard, often insulting professional fees.

There is nothing wrong with commercial entities following this model. It is legal and that is what they were incorporated for. The problem arises when greedy professional associations, government bureaucrats, trainers, and individual interpreters and translators begin to campaign for this corporate interests completely disregarding the profession and those who provide quality services.  It is very dangerous to have all of these members and peripheral members of the profession ceaselessly attempting to convince professional interpreters and translators, new and old, that the way of the future leads to a profession bastardized by an “industry” where professional interpreters and translators will have to take their marching orders from minimum-wage high school level coordinators and project managers whose only priority is to squeeze everything they can get from the interpreter and translator and pay a fee (that they cleverly refer to as “rate” to rhyme with the “industry” philosophy they practice and try to propagate) worthy of a hamburger flipper, not a professional service provider. For years they have used scare tactics and “there is no other choice” arguments to coerce many weaker colleagues to give in and drink the “industry’s” Kool Aid.

First they tried to shame and ridicule professional interpreters and translators by spreading unfounded and hateful rumors that the real reasons for our opposition to the crowning of these multinational language “industry” service providers were our ignorance of new technologies and our fear of globalization.  Using their very deep pockets, they took this message to all corners of the earth and repeated these lies until many believed them as true.

We all know that professional interpreters and translators are not opposed to technology; it is common knowledge among our peers that we all welcome the opportunity to work and learn from other high-quality professional colleagues who live somewhere else in the world.  The truth that these entities do not want the professional service user-beneficiary to know is that interpreters oppose the laughable fee (again, referred to as “rate” by them) system these outsiders to the profession propose, where they offer to pay by-the-minute of interpreting service over the phone or video outlet, lower interpreting fees for remotely interpreted conferences because the interpreter “does not need to travel” despite the fact that the service, preparation and effort are the same whether the interpreter is at the venue or twelve time zones away. They forget, or choose to ignore, that their savings are already impacted by modern technology when they save transportation, lodging, Per Diem, and travel day fees customarily paid to interpreters in case of travel. Those are the savings, not lowering the interpreter’s fee.

The same situation applies to translators who have welcomed new tools and best practices that enhance quality and reduce time and effort. The things that real professional translators will not accept, and the multinational language “industry” providers who propose no pay for repetitions, numbers, etc., while pretending to use the best of the best in the translation world as mere “post-editors” of the work that computer program algorithms and paraprofessional translators (who have been paid rock-bottom fees) did, so that the final product that the agency’s client sees is at least half decent. Professional translators know that this is not the way to provide a translation service; they know of the time and effort involved in rescuing a non-existent translation from a deformed text they were just handed by the so-called “project manager” (who have no idea of what they are asking the translator to do) is a professional practice that should never happen, but when it does, it should command an even higher fee than a translation from scratch. These translators are not afraid of technology and they are not against globalization; they oppose a job description that resembles more the work of a babysitter (of incompetent translators) than the professional service of a translator.

I know that I am not telling you anything new. We have all discussed these issues in this blog and elsewhere many times, and we have successfully defended our profession by educating the good clients and through pointing out the nefarious services and products that very often come out of these multinational language “industry” companies.  Yes, there are good agencies. We all know who they are, and we shall continue to work with them on a professional relationship based on mutual respect and understanding, but unfortunately, most agencies act as described above.

The reason I decided to write this new entry was to send you all a warning; to give you the heads up: These multinational entities are back, and they have a new strategy.

You see, they are now trying to convince interpreters and translators that they have changed; that it was all a misunderstanding. That they never meant any harm to the individual interpreters and translators. They want you to believe that they appreciate you and cherish you, and they will come up with very creative schemes.

All you have to do is to look at their conference programs to immediately notice how they are designing strategies to make interpreters and translators happy; to make you feel appreciated and respected, so at the end of the day you give up and agree to work for them under despicable conditions.  Look at the different conference programs and see how they are inviting as presenters of this new approach no others than their very own company executives, and interpreters/translators who have decided to abandon the defense of the profession and join the ranks of the “industry” in exchange for who knows what.

This is their new strategy, so we have to be alert. They must think that this time they will get us, but, dear colleagues, we are no Trojans. We will not welcome their “gift” disguised as a horse.  These are dangerous times and the “industry” has deep pockets that they rather use to destroy the “profession” than to attract high-level professional interpreters and translators by paying professional fees.  We cannot let our guard down. We are not “Little Red Riding Hood” but the big bad wolf is trying to get us.

I now invite you all to share your suggestions and experiences in dealing with these very serious problems; I only ask you not to post any comments defending the multinational language “industry” movement.  This is a forum for professional interpreters and translators. There are plenty of places in cyberspace where those who want to praise the qualities of these folks can ingratiate themselves with the “industry”.

What interpreters should do when asked to charge less for their services.

Dear Colleagues:

Lately, it seems to me that there are requests everywhere for interpreters to work for less and even for free. Whether it is the Olympic Games, the political campaign events in the United States, or the community organizers’ voter registration actions.  Everybody seems to want a free ride.  At first impression, it looks like these are worthy causes and we as interpreters should be on board; unfortunately, when you take a second look at the request, you start wondering what is really going on. You see, Olympic Games’ organizers ask us to provide our professional services for free, they tell us it is a righteous idea, it will help to bring people together, and it will contribute to world peace. Then you realize that the physicians, paramedics, attorneys, dietitians, and many other professionals involved with the Olympic movement are not doing their jobs for free, they are getting paid for their professional services.  The same thing happens when you notice that the person asking you to volunteer your interpreting services to a political campaign or to a community organization’s event are paid staffers who do nothing for free. Something is not quite right.

Principled causes and ideas are great and we celebrate their existence, but professional services should always be remunerated, regardless of the virtuous cause they help advance. Otherwise, professionals should only get paid for awful, despicable activities. Under this criteria, healthcare workers should always work for free.

This reminds me of an occasion, many years ago, when a judge asked me to interpret a restraining order application form for free. When I refused stating that I would not do it unless I was paid for the professional service, the judge told me that it would be my fault if I refused and the victim was later harmed by the alleged perpetrator she was seeking protection from. He said that I was greedy.

Despite the fact that this judge was backed by an ignorant selfish interpreter coordinator at that courthouse, I immediately responded that my services were professional, just like the judge’s. I then asked him what kind of moral authority he had to scold me for not working for free while at the same time he was making a pretty fat check for presiding over the hearing. I did not interpret and I never knew what was of that alleged victim that a judge refused to help, because it was up to him to lend her a hand by just approving the payment of my professional interpreting services of the restraining order application.  You see, it is easy to be a Good Samaritan when it is on other people’s dime, it is more difficult when it affects you directly.

It is easy to ask for volunteer work when you are getting paid for asking others. I have nothing against volunteer, charitable work, but it has to be on my terms. I am a professional just like the physician, or the judge of my story, I run my own practice and I have to generate an income to cover expenses and to live the way I want to live; in my particular case, I work hard and provide an excellent professional service to be able to live my lifestyle.

As professionals, we must never lower a fee to give someone a break because they are poor, needy, or just need a break to get back on their feet.  You see, the day you agree to reduce your fee to a client, regardless of the motivation behind your decision, will be the last time you were able to charge your regular fee. From that point on, because everything gets to everybody’s ears in this world, all clients will always ask why you are charging them a full fee when you charged a lower amount to another client.  It is a dead end with no return.  It is a terrible business decision. I think you are starting to see why a lawyer or a doctor ask you to lower your fee for their “needy client or patient” while at the same time they charge them their regular fee.  When someone asks you to provide a professional service for free or at a reduced fee they are belittling the profession; they are automatically placing you in a separate category from the one where doctors, engineers and accountants are.  To lower your fee is a disgrace.

People, clients included should know that they will always be able to find someone else willing to work for a lower fee, but you are not that person. Your services are of the highest quality and that goes hand in hand with a robust fee.  On the other hand, because we should have a spirit of social empathy and solidarity, we must provide certain services pro bono.

Please pay close attention to what I am about to say:  As a professional, I am who decides when to volunteer my services, I decide the causes that are worthy of my time and effort. Professional interpreters should set aside a time for these free services, buy it should be at a time and place you decide; that way you can set the time aside when it does not interfere with your professional practice or your personal life.  You should designate, let’s say, the first Saturday of the month from 8 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon to assist anyone who needs your services for free, and you should do it at a church, community center, or similar venue. During that time, chosen by you, you will interpret legal, healthcare, school or any other community situations that those attending the facility during the previously set hours many need. Once the time is up, and at any other time, you will only see full-fee paying clients.  This is very different from living at the mercy of others who may want you to provide free or discounted professional services at times when you should be taking care of your professional obligations towards your paying clients.  This will immediately put you on the driver’s seat and will make it clear to everyone that you charge for your services, and sometimes, when the cause is righteous, and on your terms, you provide services free of charge. By doing so, you are not lowering the professional standards, you are not harming your own practice, and you are not insulting the profession.

Next time that you are asked to lower your fees or to work for free because the client deserves a break, stand firm on your regular fees, and if you decide that you want to provide a service for free, not discounted, then let that person know the terms of your pro bono services.  I ask you to please share your thoughts on this very delicate issue that is vital to us as individuals trying to make a living, and to the profession at large.

Are we protecting our profession? Part 2.

Dear Colleagues:

On the first part of this entry we discussed the role that professional associations should play on the face of antitrust legislation and its adverse effect on our profession.  Today we will explore another crucial aspect of the profession that has been under siege for several years; and if some external forces have their way, it could set the profession back to the Stone Age.  I am referring to the very popular tendency to minimize the importance of interpreter and translator professional licenses, certifications or patents and the acceptance, and in some cases even blessing, of lesser quality paraprofessionals as the preferred providers of services by many government entities and multinational interpreting and translation corporations who make the decision to hire these individuals, who are unfit to practice the profession, based to the extremely low fee that they command.

It took interpreters and translators many decades of constant struggle to get to the point that their accreditations became widely known and accepted as the standard of quality among those providing the service.  Finally, holding an American Translators Association certification, or proof of many years of experience,  gave the real professional translator the needed tool to argue that she should get the job over the individual whose only credentials were the translation of his parents’ birth certificates and a couple of elementary school reports.  The days when a real professional interpreter would lose an assignment to a person whose only linguistic experience was that he had lived in two different countries during his life, became less common when true professionals started to demand top assignments with their interpreter degrees, or their court, or healthcare certifications in hand.  There was a lot to be done, but interpreters and translators were on their way to educate more prospective clients and government officials every day.  People began to notice the difference on the quality of the service rendered by a real certified interpreter or translator.

But, since nothing can come to the interpreting and translation world without drama and tragedy, technological developments such as CAT tools and telephone/VR interpreting came to be. This should have been a welcome development that benefited interpreters and translators; however, this new technology, combined with a global economy where big corporations seek profit by bastardizing a real profession and turning it into an assembly line, and changing its name from profession to “industry”, injected a new player to our eternal drama:  the opportunist, also known as the “new talent scout” whose sole function was to undermine established professions, like ours, and replace quality professionals with cheap novice paraprofessionals who see this individuals as their ticket out of the flipping burgers world.

Compounding the problem in the United States, there was a new administration in the White House, whose attorney general was determined to compel the state-level agencies who were recipients of federal funds, to provide access to their services for everybody, regardless of the language they spoke. This in itself sounds very good and fair, and in fact it was not just the right thing to do by the administration, it was long due as this mandate had been part of the law since the mid-sixties when Title VI of the Civil Rights Act was enacted.  In fact, to an interpreter or translator who did not know the reality of the American system this would look like a pot of gold. All of a sudden millions of people who needed interpreting and translation services were going to get them! Unfortunately, reality and a short-sighted government opted for the easy way out, a path that was doomed from the beginning. Let me explain: This instantaneous demand for many more interpreters and translators exceeded by far the supply of professionals in the United States, and to meet the mandate, the states decided to enable just about any almost-bilingual individual, to provide translation and interpreting services, instead of promoting more college programs and encouraging American citizens and permanent residents to prepare themselves, and become true professional interpreter and translators, who would have access to professionally remunerated work due to the implementation of this legislation.

When the opportunists, also known as the “new talent scouts” realized what was going on, they immediately saw the possibility for huge profits by providing the required services with tons of these paraprofessionals, who they immediately hired at rock bottom fees.  Moreover, they saw the possibility of making their margins even bigger by using machine translation and retaining humans as proofreaders, and by providing interpreting services by telephone, and lately by video remote interpreting or VRI in some cases, while hiring these new “type” of “interpreters” by the minute (or if they are lucky by the hour).

Government officials liked the solution, but they still had one more obstacle that was keeping them from going all the way with these multinational corporations operated by the opportunists, also known as the “new talent scouts”, who by now were active in social media, writing their own blogs, and organizing their own conferences to build themselves up like interpreting and translation “self-proclaimed gurus”. That obstacle was the certification.

The certification, that extremely difficult and elusive project that took real interpreters and translators several generations to create, and then make known and widely respected, was by now a requirement in the law.  It was obvious that the new paraprofessionals would never pass a certification exam, so the government officials and their “associates” had to think fast, and cheap.

The solution they came up with was the creation of a “second class” tier of people who they call “language facilitators”, “justice-system interpreters”, and many other labels, avoiding this way the uncomfortable, and perhaps illegal alternative of referring to them as translators or interpreters, who, in lieu of a real certification, would be “accredited”, “registered” and many similar names.  Now they argue that these individuals can provide the professional service as long as the content is not too difficult or the event is not very important!

Finally, to end the vicious circle, some of our opportunistic “friends”, also known as the “new talent scouts”, realized that with government officials willing to do whatever possible to go around the true mandate of Title VI, which would require them to use certified, experienced, professionally trained interpreters and translators, they could get another piece of the pie by pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and creating a mutant creature they would call: “community interpreter certification”.

The principle is very simple: What do you do when you have a group of people who cannot pass the interpreter certification exam? You develop another program with an exam easy enough for anybody to pass, and you propose it to the authorities as a legitimate certification for court cases before administrative judges, for client-attorney interviews, and for simple medical events. Do you see the pattern? Once again we have the not-so serious event and the not-so difficult content rationale to justify the use of mediocre individuals, who have only one advantage over the real professional, experienced, certified interpreters and translators: They will work for peanuts; because whatever they get paid will be better than the money they were making before they got “discovered” by the talent agent.  Never mind the fact that administrative law hearings are as complex as Article Three court hearings as I have indicated on a previous entry to this blog a few months ago.

The situation turned for the worse when the implementation of Title VI at the state-level civil courts in the United States was narrowly interpreted by many of their administrative offices, as meaning that only interpreters supplied through the judiciary could provide services in civil matters. This actually killed the main source of income to many entrepreneurial interpreters who had opted out of the bureaucratic, low-paying criminal court assignments, and had developed their own client-base, charging for their services according to supply and demand. Oftentimes, because of the complexity of civil litigation, and because of their type of clients, these interpreters fared much better than their counterparts who stayed on the criminal court bandwagon.  Title VI guarantees equal access to all government funded services, including the administration of justice, but it does not make it illegal for litigants who want to, and can afford it, to hire private interpreters.  In my opinion, this is a classic example of a situation where professional associations needed to protect their individual members, and the profession, by advocating for the availability of private interpreters to be retained for civil litigation.  Unfortunately, instead of taking action, our biggest professional association in the United States not just sat on the sidelines, but welcomed the new “civil court-provided interpreter system”, and remained silent when some states decided to meet the requirements of Title VI by hiring big “interpreting services” agencies (who view our profession as an industry) to program the interpreters for civil cases.

To summarize the situation, we now have an environment fostered by the government authorities, and exploited by the multinational interpreting and translation corporations, plus some small “local talent” that was able to learn fast how to do this thing, where certifications and education do not matter anymore, where assignments are going to questionable paraprofessionals, many of whom have never been able to pass a certification exam, who are working under terrible conditions, in exchange for a miserable fee.  The first logical reaction of any interpreter or translator should be one of outrage, disgust, frustration. The second reaction should be to talk to its professional association and ask it to represent its members and protect them from these nefarious tendencies, thus saving the integrity of the profession.

Attorney and medical associations are vigilant and protective of their members and profession. They do not allow, under any circumstance that paraprofessionals practice law or medicine. In fact, attorney associations set the standards of practice in their profession. No agency or its equivalent is allowed to set the tone.  They have lobbied for, and achieved legal protection: In the United States it is a crime to practice law without a license, and this applies to all court proceedings, including administrative courts.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with some of the bigger translator and interpreter associations.  They keep silent when the government creates these groups of paraprofessionals to “meet” the requirements of Title VI. They invite those who are turning translators into proof readers to their conferences to recruit more of the young talent before they learn to separate good from evil; Instead of protesting, criticizing and denouncing the birth of that Frankenstein’s monster called “community interpreting certification”, they celebrate the lowering of the bar and open wide their organizations’ doors for these paraprofessionals.

Moreover, they welcome as their members many of these multinational corporations, “self-proclaimed” gurus, and opportunists, also known as the “new talent scouts”. Maybe they do so because they do not know of all these terrible things that are happening to the profession. Maybe they let them in because they share their view of interpreting and translation not as the professions they always were, but as industries where the proofreader (formerly known as translator) and the part-time telephone operator (formerly known as interpreter) will happily hold hands at the assembly line and praise the virtues of the big “language” corporations. The question is, what are professional associations for? I now invite you to share your comments about this reality we are living pretty much around the world, and to offer your solutions to the role that a professional association should play in the world of interpreting and translating.