I just had a difficult conversation with the gentleman who cleans our windows. He was quite unreasonable, but I managed to stay firm and calm. Usually, he cleans windows for several buildings on our street in one go. He charges me £11 for about half an hour’s work—just the exteriors.

I told him our needs had changed. From now on, I would need him to clean our windows at a specific time and date that we choose. To sweeten the deal, I offered him £20 for this little adjustment.

Well, he wasn’t happy. He started making excuses, claiming he wouldn’t leave his house for just £20. While he charges less for individual jobs, he explained that grouping several jobs together allows him to earn a decent amount for a day’s work. My £20, he said, wouldn’t justify disrupting his workflow.

Trying to maintain professionalism, I offered him a hot drink and let him calm down before explaining my additional requirements.

First, because we care deeply about safety, I told him he’d need to undergo a background check. It only costs £60, and naturally, he’d have to pay for it.

Then I explained he would also need to register with the National Register of Window Cleaners, which is a mere £250 annual fee. He looked frustrated, but I wasn’t done yet. I pressed on, only for him to interrupt me—rather rudely, I might add—to point out that it would take him more than 15 jobs to recover the costs of these new requirements.

I calmly corrected him. His calculations were wrong. To register with the National Register, he would also need to obtain a diploma from the Chartered Institute of Window Cleaners. The course takes just three months and costs only £2,000.

That’s when he completely lost it. He started speaking gibberish! From what I could gather, he claimed he didn’t have that kind of money. Even if he did, he argued, it would take months of covert these costs at the £20 rate I was offering even if he was not factoring in his labour, let alone breaking even!

I tried reasoning with him, explaining the importance of professionalism and raising the profile of the window-cleaning profession. But he wasn’t listening. Instead, he accused me of exploitation and claimed I was threatening his family’s livelihood. Boldly, he suggested that if I wanted all these things, I should pay for them!

How do you reason with someone so short-sighted? I patiently explained that these were investments in his career as a freelance window cleaner and that he should think about the long-term, not the short-term. But that only made him angrier. He shouted something about there being no “long-term” in window cleaning because robots would replace him soon.

Can you believe it?

Here’s the twist: something very similar happened to me recently. I was interviewed by one of the big agencies to work as an interpreter in London hospitals. The job offers hourly work when needed, at £20 per hour. And, like the window cleaner, I was asked to pay £60 for a background check!

I’ve worked in translation and interpreting for almost 20 years. I’m now in the second year of a PhD in interpreting studies. I could be teaching MA-level courses in interpreting if I wanted to. Yet the head of the NRPSI has the audacity to refer to interpreters like me, with higher education degrees and years of experience—as pseudo-interpreters. One of his devoted followers even called me a “cowboy pseudo-interpreter.” I do not even need to work with the NHS. My actual rates are much higher than this and I have a minimum charge of £200. I was interested in interpreting for the NHS as a way of helping others in my community. This analogy above is intended to illustrate structural imbalance, not to equate professions.

While I fully support the need for quality control and ensuring only competent interpreters work in public services, the expectation that interpreters should shoulder all the financial burdens of meeting these requirements is a complete disregard for the realities of our lives. It’s a demand divorced from reality and a blatant example of how the system exploits the very professionals it depends on.

When did investing in “professionalism” turn into exploitation? Is it truly professionalism when the system not only takes your labour but also makes you pay for the privilege of working?

It has a name: Indentured labour.

Why don’t the organizations that supposedly represent interpreters demand that translation companies and/or the government provide these exams as part of the hiring process? A similar initiative was announced last December for the course required for London Black Cab drivers.

Think about it—in 2023 alone, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) wasted an estimated £6,000,000 on court adjournments due to the last-minute unavailability of interpreters. How many diplomas could this taxpayer money have funded to ensure a pipeline of vetted, quality-checked interpreters?

The MoJ claimed that TheBigWord would compensate for part of that loss but didn’t specify how much. And yes, I’ve already submitted a Freedom of Information request to find out!

I have previously written about phone interpreting where translation companies contracted to provide public service interpreting operate “virtual call centers,” where interpreters are only paid for the time they spend actually talking to clients. They aren’t paid while waiting for calls, taking coffee breaks, or even using the bathroom. Sounds outrageous, doesn’t it?

It’s unbelievable that this is the system our government is enabling—and funding with our tax money—by contracting exploitative translation companies to deliver public service interpreting, with hardly any oversight or transparency. Those translation companies pay interpreters just a few pennies per minute of work, typically between 17 and 19 pence per minute. With assignments as short as 15 minutes, interpreters often earn only £3–4 per session, with no guarantee of additional work for the rest of the day or week.

Considering the high level of skill required to be an interpreter—including fluency in two languages and exceptional communication abilities, especially in critical contexts such as hospital interpreting, where their work can have life-saving or life-altering consequences for individuals with limited English proficiency—these rates are shockingly low and undeniably exploitative.