Immigration services could be disrupted if mass action by up to 2,000 interpreters goes ahead in January
The system for processing immigration claims across the country is set to grind to a halt in the new year if a threatened mass boycott by Home Office interpreters goes ahead.
The looming action in protest at pay cuts is the first time the estimated 2,000 interpreters have threatened to stop work. The organisers of a fair pay campaign – who are running it anonymously for fear of reprisals by the Home Office – say that so far they have received solid support from several hundred interpreters. A meeting with Home Office bosses has been scheduled for 11am on Monday to discuss their concerns. More.
See: The Guardian
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Canada
Local time: 20:23
Member (2008)
French to English
+ ...
The article makes clear these are freelancers, not employees. Isn't it up to the freelancers to say what their rate is? Is it a "boycott" when the client tries to lower the rate and the freelancer doesn't accept it?
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:23
Member (2008)
Italian to English
The article makes clear these are freelancers, not employees. Isn't it up to the freelancers to say what their rate is? Is it a "boycott" when the client tries to lower the rate and the freelancer doesn't accept it?
No. As in the case of many other privatised services that used to be publicly owned, the company now running interpreter services has *forced* the interpreters to become freelancers so that they are paid per hour and have no pension rights, no guarantee of work, no holiday pay, etc.
Read the article in full.
Also this one, if you're really interested:
http://www.irr.org.uk/?p=21523
[Edited at 2015-12-23 14:29 GMT]
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:23
Serbian to English
+ ...
The article makes clear these are freelancers, not employees. Isn't it up to the freelancers to say what their rate is? Is it a "boycott" when the client tries to lower the rate and the freelancer doesn't accept it?
"Isn't it up to the freelancers to say what their rate is?"
Yeah sure, and you can always say "no" to a mugger in the middle of the night.
When you have ONE buyer and 2000 suppliers it's called "monopoly" and all this nice talk about "liberty of contracting" starts sounding like a bad joke.
From my experience any peasant who descended from his hills to sell his produce on the local market understands it perfectly without needing any PhD, nor BSc.
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:23
Member (2008)
Italian to English
The article makes clear these are freelancers, not employees. Isn't it up to the freelancers to say what their rate is? Is it a "boycott" when the client tries to lower the rate and the freelancer doesn't accept it?
"Isn't it up to the freelancers to say what their rate is?"
Yeah sure, and you can always say "no" to a mugger in the middle of the night.
When you have ONE buyer and 2000 suppliers it's called "monopoly" and all this nice talk about "liberty of contracting" starts sounding like a bad joke.
From my experience any peasant who descended from his hills to sell his produce on the local market understands it perfectly without needing any PhD, nor BSc.
There's a lot of loose talk about "free markets" these days. As the great American sociologist C.Wright Mills once put it "Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm."
[Edited at 2015-12-25 08:48 GMT]
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:23
Russian to English
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/28/home-office-puts-plans-to-cut-interpreters-pay-on-hold
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:23
Member (2008)
Italian to English
That headline got me very puzzled. The statement "Home Office puts plans to cut interpreters' pay on hold" seems to refer to interpreters' pay being on hold, and the government's plans to cut that pay. Or something. The Guardian is well known for the illiteracy of its sub-editors but it's been a long time since I saw such a chaotic, incomprehensible statement.
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