“We Are the Voice of New Yorkers in Their Most Important Moments”; Interpreters Fight for Their Union

On April 16th interpreters at LanguageLine Solutions (LLS) joined CWA leaders and several prominent New York City elected officials to call on the company to respect its workers’ right to form a union and improve working conditions.

At a press conference hosted by New York City Councilmember Julie Won, legislators including several City Councilmembers as well as former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and Comptroller Mark Levine, announced the formation of a new NYC City Council committee on health and safety and demanded that management meet to address concerns impacting their ability to provide quality interpretation services to New Yorkers.

"Interpreters at LanguageLine Solutions have reported meager wages, inadequate training, and impossibly short break times,” said Billy Gallagher, Assistant to the Vice President of CWA District 1. “These interpreters are fighting for a union to improve conditions not only for themselves but for everyone who depends on them. CWA will fight alongside these workers every step of the way until LanguageLine Solutions does the right thing and respects these workers' right to organize."

“As interpreters, we are the voice of New Yorkers in their most important moments—in hospitals and courtrooms, accessing city services, financial services, or even calling 911,” said Yuliia Moshkova, Russian interpreter at LanguageLine Solutions. “Our working conditions are New Yorkers’ service conditions, and we need LLS management to work with us to address health and safety issues on the job that are impacting our ability to provide quality interpretation services.”

LLS interpreters work in schools, hospitals, courtrooms, and more, ensuring that the public has fair language access via telephonic interpretation at times when they need it most. But despite their essential work, interpreters face stressful working conditions, pressure to take calls back-to-back with little more than 30 seconds in between, inadequate training, and low pay. This has led the workers to seek a union with CWA — but are facing tough pushback from the company, despite unions within the same company in other countries.

LanguageLine Solutions serves more than 30,000 clients worldwide, including agencies within the New York City government, which total over $19.3 million in active contracts. With vital services to millions of New Yorkers at stake, the New York City Council is escalating its demands for Teleperformance to improve working conditions and recognize the interpreters’ right to organize a union.

"As a New Yorker who grew up relying on interpretation and translation services, I would not be here today without the essential services provided by the interpreters at LanguageLine Solutions," said Council Member Julie Won. "These workers provide reliable interpretation that bridges the communication gap between patients and doctors, families and services, people and justice. It is heartbreaking to hear from our interpreters today about horrid pay and terrible working conditions. The City has allocated millions to interpretation services, and so there is no other choice but to listen to these workers and support their right to organize."