Dear John Worne,

This as an open letter in response to your remarks during the event Studying Translation in the Age of AI, organised by the University of Surrey. It highlights serious concerns regarding the partial and potentially misleading account you presented of the translation and interpreting industry by reframing structural challenges—such as declining pay, intensified workload pressures, and reduced autonomy—as matters of individual responsibility, ethics, and professional judgment. It further contends that this emphasis on adaptability, personal growth, and “joy” risks obscuring well-documented material realities, including financial precarity, worsening working conditions, and exploitation. When these realities are omitted, institutional narratives risk aligning with those advanced by corporate actors. More importantly, they risk normalising and depoliticising a situation in which basic rights—such as the ability to secure a dignified livelihood and to enjoy the fruits of one’s labour—are persistently undermined.

In your remarks, you shifted structural problems in the translation and interpreting industry into matters of individual responsibility. Systemic pressures—low rates, tight deadlines, platform control, and client demands—were reframed as personal ethical challenges, overlooking the fact that many translators operate under significant economic and contractual constraints. Has it ever occurred to you that these conditions are in fact the consequences of decisions made by owners and executives of translation and interpreting companies?

You spoke about pressure, but rather than interrogating it is source, you normalised it. Phrases such as “accountability under pressure” and “the pressure on people to produce now” present pressure as inevitable and that translators should adapt to rather than questioned. This framing leaves unexamined who generates these conditions, who benefits from them, and why they persist.

Additionally, you emphasised “judgment” and “professionalism” as key responses. While important, these do not address the structural challenges facing the profession: declining rates, fragmented work, algorithmic management, weakened bargaining power, and shrinking workloads as AI reshapes the industry. This risks suggesting that better-trained individuals can resolve structurally produced problems, subtly shifting the burden of adaptation onto translators themselves, and urging them to spend money gaining skills that they might not be fairly compensated for. Under conditions of low pay, tight deadlines, and platform-mediated control, the issue is not simply one of ethics or judgment—it is one of power, market structure, and the distribution of risk.

Most strikingly, you concluded on what you described as an “upbeat note,” suggesting that those with deep linguistic training ultimately “have a more joyful life,” without acknowledging that many are struggling to make ends meet. A growing body of evidence shows an industry marked by downward pressure on rates, increasing fragmentation of work, intensified monitoring, reduced autonomy, and widespread financial precarity.

Labour research consistently demonstrates that financial insecurity correlates with poorer health outcomes, reduced life expectancy, and rising social inequality and child poverty. These findings contrast sharply with promotional discourse encouraging translators’ investment in training and membership fees, which may mislead practitioners into a life of sustained financial precarity.

Against this backdrop, I want to be clear: while the personal value of learning languages is undeniable, invoking “joy” in this context risks obscuring material realities, diffusing responsibility, and reinforcing narratives that obscure responsibilities.

Emphasising “joy,” “fascination,” and “personal growth” is therefore not simply a matter of tone. It constitutes a reframing that shifts attention away from labour conditions and towards overtly positive language—risking not only obscuring material realities, but also adding insult to injury.

This is not a neutral omission. When structural issues are left unaddressed, responsibility is implicitly shifted onto individuals—their ethics, their judgment, and their ability to navigate increasingly constrained conditions.

At stake here is not simply narrative framing, but representation.

The enduring value of language as a human capacity does not guarantee the fair valuation of linguistic labour. History repeatedly shows that socially essential skills can remain culturally valued while being economically devalued. This was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when professions which are often underpaid and underappreciated were designated as “essential!” Did you know that public service interpreters were classified as front line workers while still not offered the most basic rights such as paid sick leave if they catch the virus while they are working on the front lines?

As the head of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, your words carry institutional weight. They shape how the industry is understood by students, educators, policymakers, and the public. When representation foregrounds personal fulfilment while underrepresenting material realities, it risks reproducing a partial and depoliticised account of the industry.

Perhaps you can understand my frustration, as we have had variations of this conversation multiple times. When your institution contributed to the Working Together white paper in collaboration with the Association of Translation Companies (ATC), responsibility for the crisis in public service interpreting was largely attributed to external factors such as procurement complexity, while continued outsourcing was endorsed under the language of collaboration. At the time, I criticised this as effectively absolving translation and interpreting companies of responsibility toward their workforce, especially that it is a highly racialised and feminised workforce.

A similar pattern appeared in your contribution to the House of Lords public inquiry into court interpreting. There, you proposed a rate of £30 without addressing whether it would enable interpreters to sustain a viable livelihood, while also advocating mandatory certification, offered by your own institute, without considering the additional financial burden on already underpaid practitioners. Ironically, the representative of the contract holder claimed that the average rate of pay is £45. Has your institution tried to verify such a claim while you continue “collaborating” with the interest group that represents that company?

The same strategic and ethical failure was repeated when the CIOL issued the public statement “The Strategic Case for Languages in UK Higher Education” jointly with the Association of Translation Companies (ATC) and the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI). Again, it presented unproven claims about the economic benefits of learning a foreign language while completely omitting the well-documented financial realities facing translators. The report also excluded any mention of the extent to which the translation industry is costing the UK economy by underpaying its workforce and leaving many dependents on family support, loans, or state benefits. Do not you think that the UK economy needs a fairer translation industry rather than complicit “collaboration” and adaptability to Exploitation

This concern is not personal but structural. The ATC, in particular, has consistently framed industry challenges in ways that emphasise collaboration, “talent shortages,” and external constraints, while deflecting attention from how pay and conditions are shaped. Meanwhile, substantial evidence points to growing precarity, declining rates, and an exodus of professionals from the sector.

Despite this, the ATC continues to project a constructed narrative of ethical leadership, even receiving recognition for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion during a period in which systemic precarity in public service interpreting was widely documented and substandard services was causing miscarriage of justice, bodily harm, and even death. It is precisely this dissonance—between institutional self-presentation and material realities—that is at issue.

Against this backdrop, it is difficult to ignore the convergence in framing. Why does a professional institute such as the CIOL reproduce narratives that closely align with those advanced by organisations representing corporate interests? Why are structural labour concerns consistently marginal in comparison?

For me, this raises serious questions about whose perspectives are being prioritised and whose are being obscured.

If the CIOL is to remain credible as a representative body, it must do more than promote adaptation and alignment with industry trends. It must be willing to name and address the structural conditions shaping the industry—including those that are inconvenient or uncomfortable.

If professional bodies are to remain credible, they must do more than inspire and reassure. They must confront the structural realities shaping the profession.

That includes:

• acknowledging the economic pressures facing practitioners
• addressing the distribution of power, risk and profit within the industry
• and advocating for fair and sustainable working conditions

Anything less risks reducing representation to misleading promotional rhetoric.

I invite you to respond to these concerns directly and publicly.

Yours sincerely,
Fardous

About the author

Fardous Bahbouh is a Researcher and Consultant specializing in Labour Rights, Public Policy, and the Political Economy of the Translation Industry.

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