by Susan Randolph, Executive Linguist Agency
After 47 years of sleeping-partner membership with NCTA (Northern California Translators Association) and ATA (American Translators Association) with their useful member registries, I find myself in an anagram soup of CAPIT, ATA, DIR, DWC, CoPTIC and WCIG.
It was illuminating to watch the important work done by CAPIT (California Association of Interpreters and Translators, formerly NCTA since 1978) up close after I was invited to work on the WCIG (Work Comp Interpreters Group) as a representative of the Company Members of NCTA>CAPIT.
Now things are exciting. Set to replace the 34-year-old fee schedule currently in use, the new interpreter fee schedule proposed by the California Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) needs a lot of work.
Strangely, the new legal team charged with constructing an updated fee schedule is not availing themselves of the research assembled by LAIW (Language Access for Injured Workers), a California WorkComp Interpreters Association offshoot. This schedule was created for the previous committee over a three-year period to highlight real market interpreter fees, Independent Bill Review data, and numbers showing a steady growth of professional interpreters.
This current legal team appears instead to be relying on ancient government codes and faulty data compiled by a research unit that knows little to nothing about the interpreting space. Furthermore, they failed to see the need to contact subject matter experts like LAIW or CAPIT directly, saying instead that they would conduct their own research.
The result is a schedule clearly designed to pay interpreters as little as possible. Using the services of non-certified interpreters is considered acceptable for all types of assignments and, in some settings, this ignores advancements in language access laws. This is clearly unacceptable to anyone who knows it is essential for professional, competent interpreters to assist deaf and limited English-speaking injured workers as they wend their way through a workcomp claim with all its medical and legal complexities. Our profession has developed far beyond what is reflected in the proposed update.
If certified interpreters and the language companies providing interpreting services are not able to make a living in workers’ comp, they will need to turn to other settings: education, healthcare, quasi-legal, etc.; their experience, education, training and certification will be lost to the system. Greatest harm will ultimately be caused to injured workers, which will leave them vulnerable to ineffective medical care and unjust settlements mediated by untrained, cheaper “interpreters”.
It’s plain to see that the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and DWC must be made aware, yet again, of the dire implications of the proposed fee schedule for the injured workers of California. Similar fee schedule proposals were put forth in 2015 and 2018 and had to be sent back to the drawing board. The DWC legal team has also indicated they may use the fee exemption loophole to avoid the formal rule-making process after the next forum posting and allow only a limited public comment period.
Fortunately, CAPIT has partnered with LAIW, experienced in workcomp interpreter issues, to advocate using an approach similar to that of the successful campaign run by CoPTIC (Coalition of Practicing Interpreters and Translators of California) five years ago to earn the exemption from AB5 for freelance interpreters and translators. The basic strategy now is to make sure our representatives in Sacramento know about the one-sided, profession-decimating fee schedule proposed and the limited public comment period. This will require interpreters and translators from all over California to contact their state Senators and Assembly members, providing them with the questions they should pose to the DWC regulators when the fee schedule is unveiled. You may ask, why translators? Because when laws erode standards for interpreters—their working conditions and pay—it creates a spillover effect into translation, an industry already strained by decades of downward price pressure from machine translation and now the growing push to replace human expertise with AI.
CAPIT will provide guidance regarding the most effective language to use to make our message heard and strategies for arranging meetings with representatives. Building a record of the occasions when the absence or presence of an interpreter caused or prevented major harm to a worker is also an important weapon.
When NCTA took the recent, significant step of expanding its reach to include interpreters, as well as translators throughout California and became CAPIT, it equipped itself for the state-wide fight for a realistic recognition of the interpreting profession. The timing was perfect.
It is truly the ideal moment for CAPIT members to encourage colleagues to join the Association and to take part in this campaign. It is vital for the importance of language access for all Californians to be recognized.