{"id":11712,"date":"2017-03-07T16:47:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T16:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=11712"},"modified":"2017-03-07T16:47:51","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T16:47:51","slug":"interpreters-race-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=11712","title":{"rendered":"Interpreters’ ‘race to the bottom’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Justice secretary Liz Truss has been urged to review how vital interpreter contracts are awarded and how they operate, following reports that Pearl Linguistics has gone into liquidation.<\/p>\n

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Unite is concerned that there is \u00e2\u20ac\u0098a race to the bottom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in an outsourcing contract culture that is adversely affecting those who require interpreting services when using the NHS or appearing in court.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we have here is an example of a company, Pearl Linguistics that has gone into liquidation because, it appears, it was unable to operate in a contract culture even when underpinned by depressed wages,” said Unite regional officer Andy Murray.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe cost-cutting across the sector is driving highly competent interpreters away from the profession as they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to live on the wages on offer.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe people that are going to suffer are those needing assistance when going to NHS appointments and those appearing in court.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unite, which embraces the National Union of British Sign Language Interpreters (NUBSLI), said that interpreters, skilled in difficult languages and dialects, were being paid as little as \u00c2\u014112-an-hour, while the NUBSLI\u00c2\u00a0 recommended freelance rates for fully qualified interpreters in London are \u00c2\u0141260-a-day.<\/p>\n

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Unite has been taking legal advice about the possibility that interpreting agencies are abusing their dominant position in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government has an obsession, bordering on mania, with outsourcing to private companies what should be publicly-run services,” Murray added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese companies promise that they will make the contract run more smoothly while implementing so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0098efficiency savings\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but the biggest cost element is staff wages and these are then slashed.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite is calling on justice secretary Liz Truss to review the outsourcing of interpreter contacts, so that a first class service is delivered to often vulnerable clients, without a race to the bottom when it comes to wages, and terms and conditions for those providing these specialist skills.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are currently taking legal advice relating to the dominant position that these firms currently enjoy.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justice secretary Liz Truss has been urged to review how vital interpreter contracts are awarded and how they operate, following reports that Pearl Linguistics has gone into liquidation.   Unite is concerned that there is \u00e2\u20ac\u0098a race to the bottom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in an outsourcing contract culture that is adversely affecting those who require interpreting services when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[707,647],"wps_subtitle":"Justice secretary urged to investigate contracts ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11714,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712\/revisions\/11714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}