Tag: politics
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Who the Hell Is Checking the NHS Bills?
Remember back in 2013, the UK government uncovered a major scandal involving two private security companies, G4S and Serco, which had been contracted to provide electronic monitoring services? Investigations revealed that the companies had charged the Ministry of Justice for monitoring people who were no longer subject to electronic tagging, including individuals who had returned…
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We Seriously Need to Talk About Alternatives: Continuing My Ethical Plea to Translation Studies
Dear Translation Studies, I don’t want you to only prepare translators and interpreters for the future. I want you to help interrogate the present and invite our collective scholarly genius to make the present liveable as we continue to envision the future. My previous love letter borrowed a simple proposition from Joseph Stiglitz: creating a…
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Celebrating International Translation Day with a Candid (Imagined) Conversation with ITI CEO Sara Robertson and Dr. Joseph Lambert
After multiple events in the UK on academia–industry collaboration, ITI CEO Sara Robertson and Dr Joseph Lambert are taking that conversation internationally to the St Jerome’s Symposium, organised by the Consortium for Translation Education Research (CTER). If I were hosting the event, these are the questions I would ask. 1. Let’s start with the evidence.…
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What Would a Good Translation Industry Look Like?
In a previous article, I explored a deceptively simple lesson from Joseph Stiglitz: markets are not natural phenomena. They are shaped by institutions, laws, policies, regulations, norms and power. But that insight raises another question. If markets are shaped by us, how should we shape them? Stiglitz’s work offers valuable normative insights for thinking about…
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What does Translation and Interpreting Studies know about the economic lived realities of translators and interpreters?
I am a PhD researcher investigating inequality in outsourced public service interpreting in the United Kingdom. My research has documented low remuneration, economic insecurity, weak employment protections, diminishing bargaining capacity and inadequate health and safety protections among public service interpreters. It also examines the outsourcing arrangements within which these inequalities occur, and how those arrangements…
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Write to Your MP: Fair Work and Equality in Public Supply Chains
In collaboration with the NUPIT-National Union of Professional Interpreters and Translators, I have prepared this letter for translators and interpreters who want to ask their MPs to take action on fair work and equality in publicly funded supply chains. Public money should not fund exploitation. Translators and interpreters working across the NHS, courts, police, local…
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Who Speaks for Academia? An Open Letter to ITI’s University Members on Due Diligence, Representation and Academic Independence
The CEO of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) is due to speak at an upcoming Association of Translation Companies (ATC) event in a discussion framed around “academia, associations and community”. But who, exactly, speaks for “academia”? The ITI has a controversial membership structure: it offers membership to individual translators and interpreters, universities, and…
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What Would Fair Pay for Translators and Interpreters Actually Look Like?
Translation and Interpreting Studies have documented declining rates and deteriorating working conditions, while commercial intermediaries have raised concerns about the difficulty of attracting and retaining skilled translators and interpreters. Yet a fundamental question remains largely absent from these discussions: What would actually make a rate of pay fair? Discussions of fair pay often move quickly…
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A Patchwork of Insecure Jobs or Diversification? What the Positive Language of Portfolio Careers Might Be Obscuring
Many translators and interpreters today do not have a single career. They have a patchwork. A few hours of translation here. Some teaching there. A training session next week. A short editing project next month. A handful of regular clients and intermediaries, a stream of one-off assignments, and a constant search for the next opportunity.…
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Three Simple Ways Translators Can Reclaim Agenda-Setting Power
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…
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Are You Procuring Translation and Interpreting Services Through Agencies and Platforms? Here’s What You Need to Know
When organisations procure translation and interpreting services, decisions often focus on practical considerations: cost, availability, turnaround times, scalability, and administrative convenience. I do not deny that these factors matter. However, language services are not simply interchangeable products moving through a supply chain. They are delivered by human beings. Behind every translated document, interpreted meeting, healthcare…
