News
Litigation
Aug. 2, 2002
Polyglot State
Forum Column - By Mark McCaffrey - It's not exactly a runaway train, but bodies may soon be flying, anyway. SB371, the Court Interpreters' Collective Bargaining Rights Act, goes before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, having cleared all other hurdles in Sacramento.
Forum Column
By Mark McCaffrey
It's not exactly a runaway train, but bodies may soon be flying, anyway.
SB371, the Court Interpreters' Collective Bargaining Rights Act, goes before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, having cleared all other hurdles in Sacramento.
Unless the committee deems it wiser to pull the emergency brake, this bill will make all certified California court interpreters employees of the trial courts in two regions, the northern and southern halves of the state.
The bill has been spearheaded by the Bay Area Court Interpreters Association and the California Federation of Interpreters, the latter largely a breakaway organization that dismisses its older and more conservative parent, the California Court Interpreters Association, as a nuisance when it comes to the hardball business of getting bills enacted.
But the California Court Interpreters Association and a growing number of Los Angeles court interpreters have sent out an SOS. It seems that the bill leaves only the slenderest margin for independent court interpreters - virtually the only kind that the courts have known for most of the past 30 years - to continue.
Interpreters who are not 60 or whose combined age and years of service do not total 70, are on notice: Either they get on board as employees, or they walk, unless they are willing to accept a four-day-per-month work limit. This is not a reshaping of the profession, says the opposition. It is a purge.
The bill's supporters insist there is no other way to strengthen the court interpreter contract bargaining units created by the bill. They also say that they warned the independents that their way of life would be coming to an end. Supporters further claim that the carefully crafted bill does everything possible to preserve that way of life by including a per diem employment provision, health insurance guarantees and bargaining rights.
This, the independents counter, is pure spin; the two-year effort to push the bill through came with much waltzing around the truth. The California Federation of Interpreters' definitive, pre-vote pamphlet on SB371 stated that the bill would "change interpreters' employment status from contractor to employee." But did that mean "most" interpreters? "Many" of us? Here, supporters remained evasive until the eve of the Assembly vote.
Then and only then, the bill's opponents say, did the great majority of the independents realize they had been written out, with the exception of those near retirement anyway and the few who also work for public agencies.
And what was one to make of the conspicuous omission of the word "independent" in front of "contractor" in that all-important pamphlet? Never does a court interpreter refer to himself or herself merely as a contractor, but always as an "independent" contractor.
This is more than a quibble over semantics. The bill's supporters should have had to state outright that, when employment comes in, independence goes out. Instead, they cast their language in terms of interpreters "fending for themselves" versus "gaining greater control over our profession."
In short, the SOS from the bill's opponents goes something like this: "Surveys, cards and questionnaires are the trappings of democratic process, not the substance of it. The Bay Area Court Interpreters Association and California Federation of Interpreters' leaders kept after their members to mail those cards and surveys in, but the profession as a whole was not examined, and its overall membership not heard. Nor were the courts brought into the discussion. Your so-called grass-roots campaign always knew where it was headed, and the bill could not have withstood sustained open debate. Your legislation radically changes our lives without having the courage to open your assumptions to challenge."
And how might the opposition have challenged the progress of the bill? Perhaps by posing questions to the supporters that now may have to get answered the hard way:
• What is the bill's real-dollar cost to the state? Is the administrative complexity engendered by the bill worth the bother?
• Despite testimonials about our "poor working conditions," our "vulnerability to unfair hiring practices" and our "lack of professional standing," hundreds of us have the daily respect of our judges and our courtroom colleagues. Furthermore, we have it on our professional merit. How can affiliation with a union only recently acquainted with us improve on that?
• What sort of legislative recognition do the district attorneys and public defenders have, as professional associations, that we lack? And what would it take to get it? After all, they decertified long ago but bargain for their contract.
• Interpreters are a breed of our own, just now coming into professional maturity. We stand somewhere between court reporters and attorneys in our duties. In our polyglot state, do you measure our clout in force of numbers or in indispensability?
• Employment creates hierarchy. Who will be an interpreter's boss? Perhaps only the judges should get the nod for this, but do the judges want it? Have they been asked?
• If interpreters formed a single, statewide professional association or union and funded it for five years as independents, we would have a solid start on a legal and medical fund. Why were the bill's supporters unwilling even to broach the subject of a union for interpreters?
• What happens to due process if as few as 2 percent of the independents quit because of SB371 and the courts have to let noncertified interpreters in?
The Bay Area Court Interpreters Association and the California Federation of Interpreters maintain that most interpreters want what they have always said that interpreters wanted: to sit down and bargain with the Judicial Council so as to win, at last, a respectable contract. To accomplish this, they have said, we need the legal leverage that a strong union could give us - and they happened to know where to find such a union.
Enter the Newspaper Guild-Communication Workers of America, with Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Norwalk, agreeing to sponsor the bill in Sacramento. The scuttlebutt now is that the Communication Workers of America, not Escutia, provided the rationale for throwing all but those special few independent contractors from the train. This does not strain credulity.
To be sure, many interpreters back the bill. Like the leadership, they view employment as a desirable platform to the future for interpreters and state their aspirations in the familiar terms of bargaining rights, benefits and union representation.
Creating that platform, gaining those rights and enjoying those benefits all equate to securing the respect of, and protection from, the high-handed and unyielding Judicial Council and Administrative Office of the Courts, the Darth Vadars of the running saga of SB371.
Yet many interpreters have managed just fine without these things and don't want to see their way of life bartered away for a boilerplate package of agency shop agreements, requests for recognition of employee organizations and grievance procedures, no matter how accommodating the employment terms.
The bill may be ready to go, but the interpreters are not.
Mark McCaffrey is a court interpreter and professional translator who works in both Los Angeles and Alameda counties. He is a member of the California Federation of Interpreters.
By Mark McCaffrey
It's not exactly a runaway train, but bodies may soon be flying, anyway.
SB371, the Court Interpreters' Collective Bargaining Rights Act, goes before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, having cleared all other hurdles in Sacramento.
Unless the committee deems it wiser to pull the emergency brake, this bill will make all certified California court interpreters employees of the trial courts in two regions, the northern and southern halves of the state.
The bill has been spearheaded by the Bay Area Court Interpreters Association and the California Federation of Interpreters, the latter largely a breakaway organization that dismisses its older and more conservative parent, the California Court Interpreters Association, as a nuisance when it comes to the hardball business of getting bills enacted.
But the California Court Interpreters Association and a growing number of Los Angeles court interpreters have sent out an SOS. It seems that the bill leaves only the slenderest margin for independent court interpreters - virtually the only kind that the courts have known for most of the past 30 years - to continue.
Interpreters who are not 60 or whose combined age and years of service do not total 70, are on notice: Either they get on board as employees, or they walk, unless they are willing to accept a four-day-per-month work limit. This is not a reshaping of the profession, says the opposition. It is a purge.
The bill's supporters insist there is no other way to strengthen the court interpreter contract bargaining units created by the bill. They also say that they warned the independents that their way of life would be coming to an end. Supporters further claim that the carefully crafted bill does everything possible to preserve that way of life by including a per diem employment provision, health insurance guarantees and bargaining rights.
This, the independents counter, is pure spin; the two-year effort to push the bill through came with much waltzing around the truth. The California Federation of Interpreters' definitive, pre-vote pamphlet on SB371 stated that the bill would "change interpreters' employment status from contractor to employee." But did that mean "most" interpreters? "Many" of us? Here, supporters remained evasive until the eve of the Assembly vote.
Then and only then, the bill's opponents say, did the great majority of the independents realize they had been written out, with the exception of those near retirement anyway and the few who also work for public agencies.
And what was one to make of the conspicuous omission of the word "independent" in front of "contractor" in that all-important pamphlet? Never does a court interpreter refer to himself or herself merely as a contractor, but always as an "independent" contractor.
This is more than a quibble over semantics. The bill's supporters should have had to state outright that, when employment comes in, independence goes out. Instead, they cast their language in terms of interpreters "fending for themselves" versus "gaining greater control over our profession."
In short, the SOS from the bill's opponents goes something like this: "Surveys, cards and questionnaires are the trappings of democratic process, not the substance of it. The Bay Area Court Interpreters Association and California Federation of Interpreters' leaders kept after their members to mail those cards and surveys in, but the profession as a whole was not examined, and its overall membership not heard. Nor were the courts brought into the discussion. Your so-called grass-roots campaign always knew where it was headed, and the bill could not have withstood sustained open debate. Your legislation radically changes our lives without having the courage to open your assumptions to challenge."
And how might the opposition have challenged the progress of the bill? Perhaps by posing questions to the supporters that now may have to get answered the hard way:
• What is the bill's real-dollar cost to the state? Is the administrative complexity engendered by the bill worth the bother?
• Despite testimonials about our "poor working conditions," our "vulnerability to unfair hiring practices" and our "lack of professional standing," hundreds of us have the daily respect of our judges and our courtroom colleagues. Furthermore, we have it on our professional merit. How can affiliation with a union only recently acquainted with us improve on that?
• What sort of legislative recognition do the district attorneys and public defenders have, as professional associations, that we lack? And what would it take to get it? After all, they decertified long ago but bargain for their contract.
• Interpreters are a breed of our own, just now coming into professional maturity. We stand somewhere between court reporters and attorneys in our duties. In our polyglot state, do you measure our clout in force of numbers or in indispensability?
• Employment creates hierarchy. Who will be an interpreter's boss? Perhaps only the judges should get the nod for this, but do the judges want it? Have they been asked?
• If interpreters formed a single, statewide professional association or union and funded it for five years as independents, we would have a solid start on a legal and medical fund. Why were the bill's supporters unwilling even to broach the subject of a union for interpreters?
• What happens to due process if as few as 2 percent of the independents quit because of SB371 and the courts have to let noncertified interpreters in?
The Bay Area Court Interpreters Association and the California Federation of Interpreters maintain that most interpreters want what they have always said that interpreters wanted: to sit down and bargain with the Judicial Council so as to win, at last, a respectable contract. To accomplish this, they have said, we need the legal leverage that a strong union could give us - and they happened to know where to find such a union.
Enter the Newspaper Guild-Communication Workers of America, with Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Norwalk, agreeing to sponsor the bill in Sacramento. The scuttlebutt now is that the Communication Workers of America, not Escutia, provided the rationale for throwing all but those special few independent contractors from the train. This does not strain credulity.
To be sure, many interpreters back the bill. Like the leadership, they view employment as a desirable platform to the future for interpreters and state their aspirations in the familiar terms of bargaining rights, benefits and union representation.
Creating that platform, gaining those rights and enjoying those benefits all equate to securing the respect of, and protection from, the high-handed and unyielding Judicial Council and Administrative Office of the Courts, the Darth Vadars of the running saga of SB371.
Yet many interpreters have managed just fine without these things and don't want to see their way of life bartered away for a boilerplate package of agency shop agreements, requests for recognition of employee organizations and grievance procedures, no matter how accommodating the employment terms.
The bill may be ready to go, but the interpreters are not.
Mark McCaffrey is a court interpreter and professional translator who works in both Los Angeles and Alameda counties. He is a member of the California Federation of Interpreters.
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