The trend of awarding interpreter provision contracts or framework agreements to the cheapest bidder has brought to mind the topic of self regulation.
Professions can be self regulated or by government. Interpreters are neither protected nor regulated by legislation, which leaves us regulated only by ourselves.
We have the NRCPD but it should not stop there. Self regulation comes in many guises and does not and should not stop at the yellow badge for many reasons.
Before interpreting became so focussed on business and profits, we were the preserve of the Deaf community.
We were cherry picked to be interpreters as Deaf people recognised the special heady mix of potential from the right attitude to ones ability to sign. Researchers have tried to pin point and formally record what this mix of attributes are. Interestingly, Deaf people rated different attributes higher than the ones interpreters did. Deaf people now have interpreters who are self selected and those who are not necessarily right for the job.
Along came BSL qualifications and the mainstream NVQ. With less Deaf people being used to teach interpreters and the focus on profit for course providers, people were encouraged to train regardless of aptitude. Quite often students of interpreting have been on training courses without this input from Deaf tutors leaving gaps in many interpreters’ skills.
I had a memorable conversation with someone after a booking where she broke down in tears. She had spent £6,000 on training and had finally realised after repeating many qualifications that she didn’t have the right mix of skills or the aptitude for sign language. Through her tears she asked why no-one had ever told her.
Another element of self regulation is that it engenders trust from the community and the clients we serve. The better our self regulation and abilities as individuals to allow for that to happen the more able we are to be trusted, to work with others and to gain the recognition we deserve.
If you are not yet convinced of the need for more self regulation, ask yourself the following:
How many newly qualified interpreters have you experienced gaining their full registration status and on the back of that fling themselves headlong into a booking they are not neccessarily ready for with the bravado of someone who has finished their long training? N.B training never finishes.
How many interpreters have you heard say, ‘I think I’ll do legal work now’? The thought of a court or tribunal booking, where accuracy is vital, more so than in any other booking, should send fear into the hearts of anyone not registered and fully qualified for at least five years. Sadly it no longer does. Do not take on assignments for the status and privilege of doing them, or because the agency wants you to do it, but because you are safe and experienced enough to do them. Tribunals where a panel may decide to keep someone under a section or a court case where someone’s child may be taken into care is not the place for you to practice your skills but where someone fully competent and experienced should be working.
How many interpreters have you seen, even though they have been working for a few years, refuse to engage in meaningful CPD activities? Throwing money at training courses excluded, try videoing yourself and critiquing the clip. With the sound off.
Have you worked with an interpreter who is not self-reflective? Either whilst working or one who is unable to have those open conversations and exchange feedback afterwards.
So how do we further our own self regulation? The obvious is compulsory CPD but as we, as a profession have voted that in and rightfully pushed it onto the NRCPD agenda, I shall leave that as a given. Additionally our other responsibilities should be to:
1) Seek feedback from clients and each other.
2) Debrief after assignments and discuss how we can make improvements.
3) Do not accept work until you are ready and safe to do so with the appropriate experience, skill set and support in place.
4) Do not assume you are safe and ready because you think so, the agency offered you the job or you have convinced yourself but by checking with mentors, peers, clients and friends.
5) Engage the services of a mentor should you want to enter a new domain of experience and ask them to tell you if you are ready for a particular assignment.
6) Complain. Or rather talk to each other if problems occur in bookings, if you can not resolve them submit a complaint to the NRCPD. We are still reluctant to do this to our peers but should an inrerpreter not practice in a safe way, complain we must.
6) Learn what it is to co-interpret properly. This does not mean interpreting for 20 minute stretches each but watching each other for mistakes, correcting them or offering support. Especially inside a courtroom.
Without extra certification in place for interpreters who want to work in legal and mental health settings the above ways of working become even more important.
Ultimately, if we are too fearful or defensive about having these conversations about our own work as practitioners and are unwilling to engage in more self regulation there is usually a reason. It can be an indication that an interpreter is either fearful of what they might be told or understand on some level that what they are doing is wrong or worse, unsafe.
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Interpreter Economics of Cartels and Price Fixing – Unionise or Unite?
In the last week, the previous blog post on Interpreter Price Wars sent a small flurry of comments into the inbox. A few days later someone posted a query on a Sign Language Interpreters e-group regarding price fixing. A few days after that an interesting post appeared from Street Leverage entitled: Should Sign Language Interpreters Unionize? Here follows a response:
Price fixing was an accusation many held about interpreters when the profession had years where supply and demand was in our favour. With only a few hundred interpreters in the market there was plenty of work to go around and those that were interpreting were the ones the Deaf community had decided were good enough.
Enter years of public interest in the profession, enter greater accessibility to basic BSL qualifications and a lack of understanding of the need for interpreter standards and registration, enter the creation of mainstream qualifications i.e. the dreaded NVQ. It has served neither the interpreting profession nor Deaf people well. For every good NVQ Interpreting course, with additional teaching and high standards, there are two more who churn out candidates at lower standards for profit or even to supply an interpreting agency linked to the owners of the course.
Enter an economic crisis, enter government cuts, enter outsourcing and bring on a smidgen of the Fear i.e. will I be able to cover my mortgage this month and should I just accept that job for less fees? A handful of agencies in these market conditions jumped on a chance to dramatically cut prices of suppliers i.e. interpreters. In this way they were acting as a implicit cartel. We now have a market where the effects of an Oligopoly have been stimulated. How? Think of the market where there are a few big agencies holding numerous contracts in one local area. Or one large agency holding what is effectively a sole provider contract for a government contract, whether this is locally or nationally.
Illegal price fixing and anti-competitive behaviour is hard to prove though not impossible. The solution for many suppliers is to join a union. In the UK think farmer’s milk prices and Tesco. The National Farmers Union helped to make their story a success. Beware bad press: the Telegraph reported at the time of those horrible farmers increasing prices.
So how do Interpreters resolve the current issues in their market? Unionise or not? For many having a union is unpopular for the same points Antonio details in his post for Street Leverage.
He concludes that perhaps other methods are more suitable and uses the example of the Writers Guild of America who have organised strikes repeatedly throughout their history causing in 2007-08 chaos for American TV. Sign Language Interpreters in the UK could feasibly do this. The easier and perhaps less organised way is for interpreters to simply not drop their fees. But can we do this without a greater unity?
He points out that in the US they have RID and other organisations. Here in the UK we have three organisations for interpreters or those who may work as interpreters (moot point) plus a registration body. There used to be a one membership body and one for registration. It was easier then and we were more co-ordinated as a profession. It would be easier if this were the case now. In the field of spoken language interpreting, especially public service interpreting, there are just too many organisations. Try looking up ITI, CIoL, SPSI, PIA, NUPIT alongside the Say No to ALS and No to Peanuts campaigns. There has been some great work done in getting questions discussed in parliament. Ultimately this work would be a lot more powerful were there less confusion and more unity. Strength in numbers as it were.
Antonio raises other questions which can be tailored for the UK:
How can we talk about unionising to increase awareness and an understanding of market forces in our profession?
What workshops do we need to provide to empower interpreters to run themselves as businesses earning reasonable fees and enabling them to stay in the profession?
How do we reach the increasing number of interpreters who are not part of any organisation and do not understand the effects their actions may have on the wider profession?
What other gaps in the profession are there that we need to consider and resolve?
If you have the answers or would like to respond please leave a comment below. There will be much more to say on this topic…