Three UK universities have confirmed that they do not have a partnership with the ATC, the interest group representing language service providers (LSPs), despite the ATC claiming such partnerships on its website and in its promotional materials. Institutional relations deeply matter for discussions on exploitation and labour rights in the translation and interpreting industry, because such relationships may contribute to shaping how labour conditions are researched and represented — and, in many cases, depoliticised. I am awaiting responses to my Freedom of Information requests from the other universities listed by the ATC as partners.

The University of Birmingham, the University of Leeds, and Cardiff University have all confirmed that no formal partnership exists. Cardiff University also indicated that it has recently developed a Due Diligence Policy and supporting procedure for partnership assessment, due to be published shortly. A document shared with me by the university outlines its approach to proportionate due diligence checks, which includes consideration of staff-related information such as employee numbers, employee relations and workplace issues, organisational structures, customers, customer reviews and satisfaction, and supplier relationships.

The critical point is that, in an industry where a growing body of academic research documents deteriorating working conditions, financial insecurity, and increasing precarity among translators and interpreters, questions of institutional responsibility cannot be treated as purely administrative. Universities have an ethical obligation to ensure that institutional collaborations are not framed as neutral arrangements. Instead, they require scrutiny of organisational practices, labour conditions, and broader market relationships as part of due diligence.

We urgently need an ethical and open conversation about how academic–industry relationships shape the narratives produced about the profession itself. For example, the Association of Programmes in Translation and Interpreting Studies (APTIS), which brings together translation departments across universities in the UK and Ireland, has also granted membership to the ATC. We therefore need clarification from APTIS regarding potential conflicts of interest and whether due diligence was conducted before this decision was made.

It is also important to recognise that APTIS itself is largely run by volunteer academics who are trying to make a positive contribution to the field. This makes due diligence even more important. The time, labour, and goodwill of academics — many of whom are themselves facing increasing precarity within higher education — should not unintentionally be used to legitimise or advance intermediary commercial interests without proper ethical scrutiny.

It is crucial here to clarify that the argument here is not that translation companies should not have an industry body representing them. The issue is that the ATC presents itself as the trade association defining “standards of excellence for language service companies by promoting quality-driven services and best practice.” However, labour conditions and exploitation do not appear to be part of the criteria governing membership. I do not claim that all ATC members engage in labour violations. Rather, the concern is that there appears to be no systematic scrutiny of labour practices within membership structures, despite the fact that the ATC represents the interests of all its members collectively.

I therefore urge all universities and APTIS to have strong due diligence procedures in place and to adhere to their ethical and social responsibilities by not normalising and legitimising — no matter how unintentionally — the precarity and exploitation of translators and interpreters.

Additionally, similar arguments apply to translators’ and interpreters’ professional organisations. They need to adopt similar due diligence principles in their engagement with the ATC and LSPs. I have previously written open letters to the CEOs of ITI and CIOL regarding their collaboration with the ATC on public statements that, in my view, obscure labour realities and align with intermediary interests. I later learned that ITI somehow represents both linguists and language service providers, which raises important questions about conflicts of interest that warrant reconsideration.

About the author
Fardous Bahbouh is a researcher and broadcast interpreter specialising in labour rights and the political economy of the translation and interpreting industry. Alongside her academic research, she continues to work with agencies and production companies that value interpreters and translators and provide fair working conditions. She also runs a small translation company and does not generalise critiques of large intermediaries to all translation companies or agencies.

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