Many translators and interpreters are facing growing challenges. Rates continue to fall, financial insecurity is intensifying, and stories of unfair treatment circulate widely across professional networks. Yet translators are often excluded from shaping the conversations about the profession.

At conferences, within professional organisations, and in some academic and industry discussions, narratives that align closely with commercial priorities can dominate. This risks reducing scrutiny of the responsibilities of intermediaries, end clients, and policymakers, while placing increasing pressure on individual translators and interpreters to absorb risks, adapt continuously, and develop entrepreneurial skills.

In this article, I argue that collective action begins when people recognise their ability to influence the conversation. Change starts when translators and interpreters ask difficult questions, demand accountability, and make their experiences visible. Over time, this changes the agenda itself.

Over recent years, I have produced a substantial body of writing examining language justice, interpreter and translator labour, outsourcing, professional representation, and accountability. The Language Justice Reading List brings together these articles alongside relevant research, policy discussions, and critical analysis.

I share these materials as a resource for collective action. Translators and interpreters are encouraged to read, reference, discuss, and share these ideas within their professional networks and members of the parliament. No individual can carry this work alone. Collective knowledge-building is how conversations change, how dominant assumptions are challenged, and how language professionals can reclaim a role in setting the agenda.

Here are three simple ways to begin:

1. Ask Professional Organisations Difficult Questions

Professional organisations often claim to represent or support translators and interpreters. We need to ask what they are doing about growing financial insecurity within the profession and critically examine their “collaborations and partnerships” with commercial actors.

Ask them:

• Are they collecting evidence about declining rates?
• Are they documenting exploitative labour practices?
• What advocacy are they undertaking?
• How are they representing the interests of precarious workers?

You do not need to be a member to ask these questions. In fact, organisations often care deeply about the views of potential members. Every enquiry sends a signal about what matters to the profession. The goal is not confrontation for its own sake. The goal is accountability.

If enough people ask the same questions, organisations become more likely to treat those questions as priorities.

2. Contact Your MP

Many translators and interpreters experience problems that extend beyond individual employers or agencies. These include:

• weak labour protections,
• inadequate oversight of outsourced public service interpreting,
• procurement practices that prioritise cost over ethical supply chains
• Intermediaries treating translators and interpreters as a cost consideration, rather than human professionals with labour rights

These are political issues. Members of Parliament cannot solve every problem, but they can ask questions, raise concerns, and bring attention to issues that might otherwise remain invisible.

Write to your MP. Describe your experiences and ask questions about how outsourced public service interpreting and translation are monitored, and what mechanisms exist to protect professionals from unfair and exploitative practices.

Political attention often begins with individual constituents raising concerns. You can also send them links to the articles in the accompanied reading list to support your argument.

3. Make Exploitation Visible

Many unfair labour practices survive because they remain hidden. I often see stories shared privately between colleagues but rarely reaching wider audiences. However, Visibility matters.

If you have experienced unfair treatment, consider documenting it publicly where it is safe and appropriate to do so. If you do not feel comfortable sharing your own story, support others who do. Friends, family members, colleagues, researchers, journalists and advocates can help amplify these experiences.

The goal is to create a public record. When testimonies accumulate, patterns become harder to dismiss as isolated incidents. Together, we can help transform what appears to be an individual problem into recognition of a structural one.

Continue the Conversation

If this article resonates with you, consider sharing it with colleagues, students, researchers, policymakers, and professional organisations.

You are also welcome to share, repost, or reference any of my previous articles on language justice, interpreter labour, public accountability, and the future of the profession. One of the lessons of collective action is that people rarely discover their power all at once. It develops through small acts.

Language Justice Reading List

The following articles I have written about the topic include empirical research, policy analysis, and critical commentary. They are grouped by theme rather than method, and some contributions appear across multiple categories.

1. Evidence: Research, Literature Reviews, Government Evidence, and Documented Conditions

Purpose: empirical findings, academic studies, official correspondence, investigations, documented working conditions.

The Government Has Admitted the Current Framework “Does Not Prevent Worker Exploitation and Leaves Vulnerable Workers without Core Employment Protections.” – Lingua Media Connect

Urging the Government to publish its action plan to prevent exploitation within public supply chains: An open letter to the Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson MP – Lingua Media Connect

Academic Research Documents Intensifying Precarity Among Audiovisual Translators in Europe (Albeit with Some Attribution Weaknesses) – Lingua Media Connect

Academic Research Documents Poor Job Quality and Intensifying Financial Insecurities Among UK Translators (Albeit with Theoretical and Analytical Weaknesses) – Lingua Media Connect

The Role of Outsourcing, Digitalisation, Demographics, and Credentialism in diminishing negotiation power of PSI interpreters. – Lingua Media Connect

From Booking Apps to AI: Why Technological Change Is Intensifying Precarity in Outsourced Public Service Interpreting – Lingua Media Connect

Working conditions in outsourced public service interpreting: meaningful work under market pressures – Lingua Media Connect

Financial insecurity in UK public service interpreting: Excerpts from my PhD study – Lingua Media Connect

Who Is Responsible? Research Finds Critical Safety Gaps in Outsourced Public Service Interpreting – Lingua Media Connect

What Is the Real Cost of Outsourcing? My Letter to the House of Lords Public Services Committee – Lingua Media Connect

Who’s Responsible for the Data Gap About Public Service Interpreters? – Lingua Media Connect

– Inequality and Problematic Power Dynamics in the UK Outsourced Public Service Interpreting: A Literature Review

2. Political Economy, Outsourcing, and Labour Relations

Purpose: analysis of power, markets, procurement, risk transfer, commodification.

Are You Procuring Translation and Interpreting Services Through Agencies and Platforms? Here’s What You Need to Know – Lingua Media Connect

It Could Have Been Me, or Any One of Us: I Continue Writing to Challenge the Scripts of Power – Lingua Media Connect

What Does the 2026 World Cup Have in Common with Court Interpreting? – Lingua Media Connect

Are Translators Being Treated as Professionals, Entrepreneurs, or “Humans as a Service”? – Lingua Media Connect

Are translators really lacking entrepreneurship skills? What is the problem represented to be? – Lingua Media Connect

We Must Acknowledge the Ethical and Political Tensions of Advising Translators to Move into “Adjacent Careers” – Lingua Media Connect

Who gets to define what counts as credible knowledge about translators’ rights—and whose knowledge is excluded in the process? – Lingua Media Connect

We need to talk about the value of translation—but wait… do we mean translators’ labour or LSP services? – Lingua Media Connect

Repoliticising Institutional Hybridity and Governmentality: Towards Meaningful Change in Labour Representation by Professional Interpreters for Justice – Lingua Media Connect

Theory of Change for the UK Translation and Interpreting Industry: Repoliticising Labour Precarity and Mapping Responsibility – Lingua Media Connect

Translation for Whom? Is Translation an Ecosystem, a Collaborative Community, a Profession, a Precarity Trap, or a Site of Exploitation? – Lingua Media Connect

What hope is there for translators when their intensifying financial insecurity is often depoliticised, even in The Guardian’s coverage? – Lingua Media Connect

Why Translators and Interpreters Are Often Poorly Paid: Corporate Power and Displaced Responsibility – Lingua Media Connect

How much does the translation industry cost our society by underpaying its largely precarious workforce? – Lingua Media Connect

What Is the Real Cost of Outsourcing? My Letter to the House of Lords Public Services Committee – Lingua Media Connect

The Precariat: Critical Insights for Translators and Interpreters in an Age of Insecurity – Lingua Media Connect

4 Ethical Reasons Why the UK Should Not ‘Import’ Court Interpreters from Abroad – Lingua Media Connect

Concerns Regarding Interpreters’ Representation: An Open Letter to Baroness Morris of Yardley, Chair of the Public Service Committee – Lingua Media Connect

Professionalism vs Indentured Labour – Lingua Media Connect

3. Professional Bodies, Representation, and Institutional Accountability

Purpose: ITI, CIOL, NRPSI, representation, professionalisation, governance.

The Contradictions of NRPSI: Why Its Current Approach Risks Failing Both Interpreters and the Public – Lingua Media Connect

After the BBC Investigation into Death, Bodily Harm, and Exploitation: What Translator Organisations’ Responses Reveal About Representation Failures in Public Service Interpreting – Lingua Media Connect

Who Benefits When Professional and Commercial Interests Align—and Celebrate Together? – Lingua Media Connect

Educating End Clients About the Economic Conditions of the Translation Industry is Part of Change-Making: It Must Begin with Holding Professional Organisations Accountable – Lingua Media Connect

Why Don’t Translators Just Get More Direct Clients? – Lingua Media Connect

Why can’t translators go on strike? How dominant narratives obscure the possibility of collective action – Lingua Media Connect

We Must Acknowledge the Ethical and Political Tensions of Advising Translators to Move into “Adjacent Careers” – Lingua Media Connect

Who Authorised You to Speak for Translators? Access to Work, Power, and Representation in Translation and Interpreting – Lingua Media Connect

The Dangerous Politics of “Working Together”: Why Interpreter and Translator Organisations Must Review Their Role in Normalising Outsourcing – Lingua Media Connect

10 Concrete Practice-Oriented Changes ITI Can Implement: Moving Beyond Adaptation Toward Labour-Conscious Institutional Framing – Lingua Media Connect

Should Translators Pay to Play “Happy Community” with LSPs While Exploitation and Precarity Go Unaddressed? Urgent Changes Needed to ITI’s Conference – Lingua Media Connect

Is Professionalisation Rhetoric Contributing to a Precarity Trap for Translators and Interpreters? – Lingua Media Connect

Are translators really lacking entrepreneurship skills? What is the problem represented to be? – Lingua Media Connect

Is the “Real Value” of ITI Membership Actually Negative? Professionalisation, Risk Transfer, and How Translation Labour Could Be Repoliticised – Lingua Media Connect

Why Invoke “A More Joyful Life” While Many Linguists Struggle to Sustain One? An Open Letter to the Head of the Chartered Institute of Linguists – Lingua Media Connect

When Representation Obscures Reality: An Open Letter to the Head of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting – Lingua Media Connect

The Problem with Challenging Structural Problems: Confronting multiple Stakeholders and Navigating Emotional and Professional Risks – Lingua Media Connect

Why Are Translators’ Rights Always Said to Be “Discussed Elsewhere”? Institutional Alignment with Commercial Interests as an Ethical and Strategic Failure – Lingua Media Connect

On the ethical importance of recognising the lived realities of interpreters and translators: My letter to Baroness Jean Coussins, the Honorary President of the Chartered Institute of Linguists – Lingua Media Connect

Talent Pipelines or Precarity Pipelines? Setting the Narrative Straight on the UK Language Industry – Lingua Media Connect

Professionalism vs Indentured Labour – Lingua Media Connect

Who regulates NRPSI? And why interpreters should NOT be required to fund its Publications. – Lingua Media Connect

4. Academia, Knowledge Production, and Critical Translation Studies

Purpose: critique of academic framing, industry-academic relationships, research ethics.

Collaboration Everywhere: Is There Still Space to Critically Examine the Role of Intermediaries in Shaping Translators’ Pay and Working Conditions? – Lingua Media Connect

Translation Studies Needs Stronger Self-Correction Mechanisms – Lingua Media Connect

Should university translation departments belong to the same club as industry lobby groups – Lingua Media Connect

Three UK Universities Deny Having a Partnership with the ATC: On the Ethical Duties to Scrutinise Industry Influence in Translation and Interpreting – Lingua Media Connect

Studying Translation in the Age of AI: What Gets Said, What Gets Left Out – Lingua Media Connect

Understanding the Rise of Attribution Bias in Translation Studies: Four structural reasons responsibility is increasingly misattributed in scholarly discussions of translators’ working conditions – Lingua Media Connect

Spotting Ethical-Washing in the Translation Industry: Lessons from Greenwashing – Lingua Media Connect

Good Translation Jobs Require Good Translation Companies: Why This Simple Logic Is Often Obscured — and Why Universities Must Remain Independent – Lingua Media Connect

Confronting Critical Blind Spots in Sustainability Discourse in Translation Studies: Advancing Ethical Labour Practices and Critiquing Profit-Driven Models – Lingua Media Connect

On the Ethical Risks of Translation Academics “Collaborating” with the Industry Without Adequate Critical Engagement and Objective Analysis  – Lingua Media Connect

Who gets to define what counts as credible knowledge about translators’ rights—and whose knowledge is excluded in the process? – Lingua Media Connect

Is Professionalisation Rhetoric Contributing to a Precarity Trap for Translators and Interpreters? – Lingua Media Connect

Why can’t translators go on strike? How dominant narratives obscure the possibility of collective action – Lingua Media Connect

5. Resources for Practitioners: Agency, Rights, and Collective Action

Purpose: a collection of critical resources for practitioners, and should not be read as a “career advice”

Three Lessons from Women’s Rights Movements for Translators – Lingua Media Connect

Educating End Clients About the Economic Conditions of the Translation Industry is Part of Change-Making: It Must Begin with Holding Professional Organisations Accountable – Lingua Media Connect

The Precariat: Critical Insights for Translators and Interpreters in an Age of Insecurity – Lingua Media Connect

Before Setting New Year’s Resolutions: Beware the Trap of CPD for Precarious Workers (AKA Freelancers) – Lingua Media Connect

Why can’t translators go on strike? How dominant narratives obscure the possibility of collective action – Lingua Media Connect

Are translators really lacking entrepreneurship skills? What is the problem represented to be? – Lingua Media Connect

Why Don’t Translators Just Get More Direct Clients? – Lingua Media Connect

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 unfair intermediaries to all translation companies or agencies.

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