Sign Language Interpreters Deserve a Union, Too

Martin Yost from the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521, provides this first-hand account of why joining together to negotiate a fair return on their work is so important for Video Relay Services interpreters:

My name is Martin Yost. I’ve been a sign language interpreter for 29 years in universities, medical settings, legal settings, and anywhere else a deaf person would be. In 2007, I began interpreting Video Relay Service (VRS).

VRS is new to interpreting because it is based on recently invented live-streaming video technology. The work happens in a call center environment where we interpret phone calls between deaf and hearing people remotely on video. VRS is some of the most difficult interpreting; it allows for no preparation like community (live, in-person) interpreting does. We have no idea what we are going to get hit with on each new call, so it’s stressful. While a busy community interpreter may have ten, fifteen, or twenty assignments a week, a VRS interpreter can fly through that many interpreting assignments in an hour or two on the video phone. In all my years interpreting, it never occurred to me that one day I would unionize – until 2012. 

Read Martin's full post, which is part of CWA's Customer Service Programs's Member Voices series, here.