I am a BSL/English interpreter living and working in Yorkshire. I have a house, a partner and a cat. My favourite colour is green and I am particularly fond of biscuits. I am an interpreter, but I am also a human being.

I’m self-employed and work on a freelance basis, so my income is never guaranteed. I don’t get sick pay, or holiday pay, or paid training. That all comes out of my own income, but I accept all of this because the job I get to do day in, day out gives me such joy.

Most of my work is medical interpreting, about 1/3 actually. This work comes to me via agencies, and the agencies are trying to break me. They want me to do the same amount of work for 1/3 less pay, just like that. No rhyme or reason, just because they decided, and there is very little I can do.

Well, that’s not entirely true, it seems to me that actually I have 2 choices.
Choice 1: accept the 1/3 pay cut and lose approximately £5000 a year.
Choice 2: refuse the work at a lower rate of pay, stick to my guns and take nothing from the agency, potentially losing approximately half my annual income.

I don’t know about you but neither of those seems a) very appealing or b) actually a ‘choice’ at all. It’s like asking me, which would you prefer; a slap round the chops or a stomp on the toe? However, I will be opting for Choice 2.
I will not set a precedent. I will not be dictated to. I will take a stand.

Like many of my esteemed colleagues, I spent 8 years learning, training and working my damn socks off to get to this position. When I qualified 12 months ago I thought, “this is IT, this is the dream”. I felt so incredibly fortunate. These days I find myself spending more and more time looking at local non-interpreting jobs, which will guarantee me a salary I can pay my rent with, and that just breaks my heart.

Because I’m a human being, too.

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