Can we have a poll to find out how translators are doing financially?

Tom in London wrote:
I'd like to see what would happen to our perceived value if all the world's translators went on strike for, say, one month. What do you think would happen, or rather - what do you think would stop happening ? Would the world come to a standstill?

Dan Lucas wrote:

..... It is, as Tom sagely implies, a fantasy - and best kept that way.

Dan

Tom in London wrote:
Yes but my underlying point was that translators are undervalued. The same applies to anyone who works away quietly in the background, unnoticed **unless they make a mistake**.

Dan Lucas wrote:


In the short term there would be tremendous disruption and a rush by companies and agencies to lock in any translators prepared to work. A bonanza for some, I suspect, including myself.

In the long term, the same companies and agencies would look at what had happened and soberly conclude that they could no longer afford to be held to ransom by "unreliable partners" (human translators). The amount of money invested in MT and related technologies would increase by five or ten times overnight as all parties worked to reduce their dependence on fickle human translators.

I'm reminded of what happened to platinum-group metals, which used to be common in capacitor electrodes. The main sources of platinum-group metals are or were in South Africa and the former Soviet Union. Customers put up with constrained supply and high prices for years, and it was widely thought that suppliers deliberately manipulated the market to maintain this situation. Eventually, two things happened.

First, the high price of PGMs made mines in North America economically viable, so competing mines were opened in Canada and the US. They were small, but meaningful at the margin.

Second, capacitor manufacturers started to spend huge amounts of money in the late 1990s to devise solutions to the apparently intractable problem of replacing PGMs in capacitors while maintaining acceptable levels of electrical performance. These days, capacitors with base-metal electrodes (nickel etc.) are mainstream and PGM electrodes are only used in most performance-critical and price-insensitive applications. The same concerns are driving the development of PGM-free catalysts for vehicles.

I watched this unfold as a junior analyst covering the electronics sector, and it taught me a valuable lesson. Namely, if you are perceived to be an unreliable supplier by your customer, there will come a point where they will do almost anything to replace you rather than continue to be held hostage to your whims.

So I would advise you freelance translation chappies to, you know, not withhold your labour, even if it were possible. I know it's a topic that comes up every year or so among the more excitable and commercially naive members of the forum ("Let's us translators form a union and stick it to The Man! Yay!") but I think the results would not be to your taste. It is, as Tom sagely implies, a fantasy - and best kept that way.

Dan

Daryo wrote:
Wait a second - "I would advise you freelance translation chappies to, you know, not withhold your labour, even if it were possible"- Are you by any chance saying that I have to accept just any offer???
"Liberty of contracting" too good for translators? Seriously?

Dan Lucas wrote:


The rejection of an unattractive offer of work by one worker for whatever reason they deem fit (deadline, rate, type of work, personal dislike of client, desire to avoid working when the moon is in Venus) is something I have urged freelancers to do many times in these forums. Here, for example, and here, and here, and here, and in many other posts.

A coordinated refusal by a substantial fraction of a workforce to provide any services until all workers irrespective of performance are awarded better conditions, which is a reasonable working definition of a strike, is something I would consider wildly impractical for translators and wildly inadvisable even if it were practical. I refer you to my previous post for my reasoning.

Regards,
Either Dan or an AI masquerading as Dan

Tom in London wrote:



Yes but my underlying point was that translators are undervalued. The same applies to anyone who works away quietly in the background, unnoticed **unless they make a mistake**.

If a translator's work is done well, it's completely invisible and goes unnoticed - and is therefore not appreciated.

Similar categories (of people who just make problems go away and are therefore invisible) would be:

- waiters
- garbage collectors
- postal workers
- IT systems maintenance staff
- the entire electricity generation industry
- sewage disposal workers
- your suggestions?




[Edited at 2023-02-11 10:13 GMT]

Jared Tabor wrote:

Hi all,

I've drafted a survey which, while it does not take the exact approach suggested by Guofei_LIN, does attempt to take a general look at things like earnings, income, rates, and geography. I'd be interested in any quick suggestions you may have of things which are not in the survey but could be, if you have a moment to take a look.

The survey draft can be seen at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Preview/?sm=7l4_2Fdss4kjvRGV2FTYtbxzOAlXyrmUNQxGCNwIglHLPA5mlovVnwRfP_2BGIAeqNsN

Thanks!

Zea_Mays wrote:

Hi Jared, the first thing I noticed is that it just reads "income" there - I would suggest to clarify if net/gross income is meant.

go ahead and have the poll (although I won't be participating)

Ice Scream wrote:

It must mean income/profit before tax, because anything else would weaken the data. (Income/profit being sales less expenses.)

But it would be a good idea to spell it out, as some people here do struggle with numbers and accounts.

Ice Scream wrote:

It must mean income/profit before tax, because anything else would weaken the data. (Income/profit being sales less expenses.)

But it would be a good idea to spell it out, as some people here do struggle with numbers and accounts.