End of the year message to all: Some justice to the profession.

Dear Colleagues:

This is my last post of the year and for that reason I considered several topics to discuss on this entry. I thought of writing a review of the year from the perspective of our profession, I pondered the idea of sharing with you the professional conferences I will attend in 2016, I weighed the usefulness of presenting an ethical issue for discussion, and I was having a very difficult time deciding what to write about.  Fortunately for me, it all changed when a couple of days ago I learned that one of the translation/interpretation agencies that treats our colleagues, and for that matter our profession, like garbage was slammed by the United States Federal Government for violating the labor laws of the U.S.

Once I read the news, I knew I had to write about this topic that brewed throughout the year and finally started to show concrete results during the last quarter of 2015: How multinational agencies are destroying the profession by bastardizing it as an “industry”, selling a mediocre service to both, the careless and the good-faith naïve clients, and how they denigrate interpreters and translators by offering miserable fees and unconscionable working conditions.  Now we know that they also disrespect the rule of law.

A Wage and Hour Division investigation found that Monterey, California-based Language Line, LLC failed to calculate properly overtime payments due to employees working beyond forty hours a week, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, so the Division ordered this agency to pay more than $500,000.00 U.S. Dollars in back wages and damages to 635 victims. On a separate investigation, the Division looked into the company to determine whether Language Line, LLC paid its translators and interpreters required prevailing wages and benefits when working as professional service providers on federal contracts covered by the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act. When the division determined that Language Line did not comply with the law, the U.S. Government directed the language services agency to review its United States Government federal contracts to see if they were in compliance with the prevailing wage and fringe benefits law applicable to these contracts. The review showed that Language Line LLC had violated the law, and as a result, 2,428 interpreters and translators throughout the United States will receive nearly $970,000.00 United States Dollars in back wages and benefits. The law requires that businesses pay at the minimum these wages and benefits, it also prohibits employers, like Language Line, LLC, from retaliating against interpreters and translators for exercising their rights, and it requires that all businesses maintain accurate records of wages, hours, and working conditions.  The total amount that Language Line, LLC underpaid its interpreters throughout the United States was $1.47 million U.S. Dollars according to the United States Department of Labor.  There was a little justice in this case. [http://globalnation.inquirer.net/134051/translation-firm-must-pay-1-47m-to-2400-underpaid-workers]

On December 17 we all learned that the California Department of Insurance arrested nine people involved in a complex scheme allegedly targeting more than 230 workers’ compensation insurers and self-insured employers. Among these selected group or people, we found siblings Francisco Javier Gómez Jr., and Angela Rehmann, owners of G&G Interpreting Services, an agency that allegedly fraudulently billed more than $24.6 million United States Dollars for interpreting services for injured workers with Hispanic surnames.  G&G Interpreting Services reportedly had a substantial operation providing Spanish language interpreting services across the Los Angeles California basin and southern California for injured workers receiving healthcare services through the workers’ compensation system. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said in a statement about this agency’s alleged crimes: “…When those providing services to injured workers line their pockets by ripping-off workers’ compensation insurers through fraudulent overbilling practices, and charging for services that never occurred, we all end up paying…” [http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2015/12/17/392443.htm]

Dear friends and colleagues, we can see these two examples just from this month, as an unequivocal sign that we have to be extremely careful as to who we work with, and concretely, whose contracts we are going to be associated with. Remember, your signature could appear on a dotted line next to the crook’s signature.  Of course I am not saying that all interpreting and translating agencies are bad or practice criminal activities against their clients or professional service providers; as you know, for legal reasons I even need to remind you that the G&G Interpreting Services case has not been decided in court yet, but what I can tell you is that once again we can confirm that timeless saying: “If it quacks like a duck… it probably is (a duck)”.  We close the year on this high note for the profession from our point of view, but with a terrible message to the general public that does not know the difference between a fraudulent interpreting agency, a bottom-feeder low paying agency, and a good professional interpreter like you.

We need to be careful and very selective on what we sign. We must be courageous and firm when setting our professional fees and working conditions, especially when dealing with those multinational conglomerates who despise our profession to the point of calling it an “industry” instead of a profession. We need to know that as long as we abide by the legal system, the law is on our side, not theirs. I truly invite you to share this entry, the original articles on these two horrendous examples of everything that is ugly in our professional environment, or both, with your clients as an excellent means and opportunity to educate them on the benefits (professional, ethical, quality of service and even financial) of hiring you instead of a bad interpreting and translation services agency.  This is public record and we can use this information, we can call these perpetrator and alleged perpetrators respectively by their names, and we should. Do not lie or embellish the facts, they are very powerful as they really happened. The end-client needs to know the truth and we should seize this opportunity.

This is a wake-up call to many interpreters and translators, and a validation to what many of us have been saying for years.  It is time to shun the conferences where they invite these individuals to be presenters, panelists, and even keynote speakers, it is time to reconsider our membership in professional associations that allow these type of entities to be members even though they are not interpreters, translators, or even human beings. It is time to reward conferences and professional associations that do not allow them into the conference hall or into the ranks of the organization.

Finally, I did not want to end 2015 without tipping my hat to the many colleagues who fought so hard to better the profession throughout the year and save it from the claws of those who want to shed the professional part of our work and turn it into an “industry”.  Thank you to those who stood up against SOSi and especially to those who are still holding back and not giving up o giving in. Thank you to those colleagues who are fighting for fair professional conditions at the immigration hearings in the United Kingdom. Thank you to our colleagues who are still fighting against the abuses within the Workers’ Compensation system in California. Thank you to those who stood firm when apparently disrespected by a judge who was appointed Chair of the Language Access Advisory Committee in New Mexico. A special thanks to our always-remembered colleagues in the United Kingdom who continue to fight against Capita: You are an inspiration to all of us. Thank you to each and every one of you who turn down assignments every day because of the insulting low fees, outrageous working conditions, or lack of professionalism of the agencies. It is because of you that we are still fighting against the commoditization of the profession, against the exploitation by those who offer VRI services and want to pay peanuts, against incompetent bureaucrats in government offices worldwide, and against the 20-year old ignorant who works for the agency for a fast-food type of wage and calls you to tell you how to do your professional work as an interpreter or translator. To all of you, the good, professional interpreters and translators: have a very happy new year!

The Professional Interpreter: One Profession. One Real Profession.

Dear Colleagues,

It seems to me that a week never goes by without a colleague telling me that he or she was misunderstood, humiliated, obstructed, or underpaid while doing his or her job.  Some of them react with anger, others with frustration, a few seem resigned, but a growing number of our fellow interpreters have been reacting to these real-life situations by taking action, doing something about it. Finally, interpreters finding a solution to this “never-ending” comedy of errors where the interpreter is often an unwilling character.

As those of you who know me personally (and many others have figured out by reading this blog) know, I have always considered myself a professional at the same level as all those who we provide our services to:  Scientists, politicians, attorneys, diplomats, physicians, military officers, school principals; and I try to act that way when  I provide my interpretation services.  I feel that we should all consider ourselves a real profession, perhaps even a profession above many others as we are also a little bit of an art. For this reason, when I first heard of InterpretAmerica a couple of years ago, I immediately fell in love with the idea and threw my support (mostly moral I admit) behind the incredibly hard work that Katharine Allen and Barry Olsen are doing.

I attended InterpretAmerica last year. It was like a dream, something you can only find in Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone.  The medical interpreters were there sitting next to the court interpreters, the military interpreters were having a conversation with the agencies; the equipment companies were there having a chat with the educational institutions, and the conference interpreters were sharing experiences, and learning, from the community interpreters.  This was unreal:  I saw everybody I know and work with in my different interpretation fields, all under one roof!  The colleagues from the east coast were there, so were those from the west coast, the European Parliament, the professional organizations, I saw board members and influential colleagues from ATA, AIIC, NAJIT, IMIA, and many more.

Next week, InterpretAmerica will hold its Third North American Summit on June 15 and 16 in beautiful Monterey, California.  Looking at the schedule and list of speakers, it looks like this will be the best summit so far. The speaker list includes colleagues like Sign Language interpreter Jack Jason (Marlee Matlin’s interpreter) Andrew Clifford from Glendon College, Renee Jourdenais from MIIS, my good friend Jonathan Levy from Cyracom with a military interpreting perspective that will probably be new to may in attendance, Barbara Moser-Mercer from the University of Geneva, and others of the same level.

Unfortunately, this year I will not be able to attend the summit due to professional obligations, but I will be checking in regularly with many of my friends who will be there.  As you know, I have devoted this blog to everything important and useful to our profession. This is one of the most important efforts in the history of interpretation in the United States. I encourage you to attend the summit, to exchange ideas, to take those ideas back home where you should share them with your colleagues.  And to those of you who cannot attend this year’s summit, I invite you to set aside the dates of next year’s gathering and go. In the meantime, stay in touch with those attending, and vote for InterpretAmerica in the Chase Bank campaign to qualify for a $250,000.00 grant.  I invite all my colleagues who are attending the summit, or have attended one in the past, to share their experiences with this movement  started by Katharine and Barry.