Ανασφάλιστη εργασία στο χώρο της μετάφρασης
- Thread starter Count Baltar
- Start date
Συνέχεια στην υπόθεση των 98 Φινλανδών υποτιτλιστών που παραιτήθηκαν:
5.11.2012
According to Ms Kaurismäki, BTI International had planned all along to offer the translators permanent in-house positions after the transition period. In the light of the actual events, this is a very curious claim. In the information meetings immediately following the transfer of business (on 1st Oct and 3rd Oct), the representatives of BTI International were asked directly about the developments concerning future terms of employment and the schedule in which negotiations regarding the terms could be commenced between BTI International and The Union of Journalists. Additionally, the representative of the union made a verbal invitation to these negotiations on 3rd Oct and subsequently sent three separate negotiation invitations by email. None of these invitations have received any kind of response. This paints a rather disconcerting picture about the way BTI International regards the basic procedures of the Finnish labour market culture.
In all of the information meetings Ms Kaurismäki and the chief financial officer of BTI International’s parent company Broadcast Text International, Mr Henrik Wikrén, stated that terms of employment cannot be discussed during the transition period. Wikrén was completely unable to say anything about the situation after February 2013, even as the current collective agreement that ensures certain level of employment to the translators will run out in early 2013. In other words, in all of the meetings the translators were told nothing about the plans of their new employer, despite the numerous inquiries by both the translators themselves and their union representative.
So far only a fraction of the former MTV Media translators have received the offer from BTI International Oy, and completely contrary to what Ms Kaurismäki claims, the terms are nowhere near the salaries of the MTV Media contracts. At a first glance, the monthly salary of 2,800 euros may seem reasonable when compared to the MTV Media collective contract agreement; in MTV Media contract the entry-level monthly wages salaries are 3,040.33 euros for translators and 3,362.80 euros for editor-translators. Corresponding figures in the collective agreement for translation agencies in the AV sector are, respectively, 2,970 euros and 3,284 euros. The differences between these two collective agreements and the BTI International offer initially seem relatively small, but they are in truth extremely large when BTI International’s demands on daily work rate and its effect on the salary comparison is taken into account.
It was assumed that MTV's established translators would translate approximately 17 minutes of broadcast-ready screen text per working day. According to BTI International's offer, a translator is expected to produce at least 30 minutes of finished text per working day. If it is assumed that 21 working days is required for to gain a monthly salary, approximately 360 minutes of finished translation is produced following MTV Media's terms. In BTI International the corresponding amount is 630 minutes. Therefore the price of one translated minute would be under MTV's terms approximately 8.3 euros and under BTI International's 4.5 euros. Thus in practice the work pace is doubled at the same time as the salary drops lower than the entry level salary provided in the collective agreement, and the real salary is almost halved when the accelerated work pace is taken into consideration.
In the case of the transfer of business, the approximate work experience of the translators who moved to the service of the new employer was approximately 15 years, and therefore there are no beginners amongst us. That is why the monthly salary of 2,800 euros is an unreasonable offer for many translators who have acquired extensive work experience and have a high quality education as the offer does not take into consideration experience and seniority payments. An established translator who has worked for a longer period of time for MTV Media earns approximately 3,500 euros per month and therefore BTI International's offer for monthly salary is very low even without the minute price comparison.
Additionally, we are concerned of the treatment and the terms of employment of the freelance translators of BTI. They have been forced to operate as entrepreneurs although they might not have commissions from any other party. The compensation is small – at best clearly less than third of the level of the freelancers working under MTV Media’s and YLE's collective agreement called Yhtyneet-sopimus – so in order to gain basic living they have to, at worst, toil over 60-hour work weeks which also extend to the weekend. The risk of entrepreneurship is thus outsourced completely from the translation agency to its translators without counterpart. Additionally, in return for a single, very low translation fee the translation agency demands all copyrights that can be relinquished, after which it can freely resell the translations when the translator is left with nothing.
Only some of the resigned translators received an open letter from the company in which the company wanted to share their view on the information that has been circling around in the media lately. The information on translation fees published in newspaper articles and news is based on current table of fees of the freelance translators' of the parent company of BTI International Oy, Broadcast Text International Oy. Therefore the information available in public is not incorrect and misleading like Ms Kaurismäki claims but are based on real calculations.
Managing Director Kaurismäki also proclaimed in the message sent to the translators an aspiration to strengthen the cooperation between the company and the translators in order to develop the whole subtitling industry. We are puzzled into which direction the field should develop in BTI International Oy's view when its parent company has never wanted to comply with the collective agreements nor to even negotiate them, and when it demands its translators such a work pace which inevitably deteriorates the quality of the translations, not to mention the working conditions of the translators.
The 98 freelance translators who have resigned from the service of BTI International Oy
Δική μου παρατήρηση: Μάνα, γιατί δεν με γέννησες στη Φινλανδία!!!
5.11.2012
The 98 freelance translators who resigned from BTI International have sent their former employer an open letter, dated November 1st 2012.
Paula Kaurismäki, Managing Director of BTI International Oy - our former and very short-term employer - proclaimed yesterday in the media that BTI International has made an offer to us and that the terms of the offer are close to our former contracts with MTV Media. Ms Kaurismäki in newspaper Helsingin Sanomat: ”The translators did not want to hear our forthcoming offer, but resigned instead. Now we have made them an offer where the wages are rather close to the MTV Media level.”According to Ms Kaurismäki, BTI International had planned all along to offer the translators permanent in-house positions after the transition period. In the light of the actual events, this is a very curious claim. In the information meetings immediately following the transfer of business (on 1st Oct and 3rd Oct), the representatives of BTI International were asked directly about the developments concerning future terms of employment and the schedule in which negotiations regarding the terms could be commenced between BTI International and The Union of Journalists. Additionally, the representative of the union made a verbal invitation to these negotiations on 3rd Oct and subsequently sent three separate negotiation invitations by email. None of these invitations have received any kind of response. This paints a rather disconcerting picture about the way BTI International regards the basic procedures of the Finnish labour market culture.
In all of the information meetings Ms Kaurismäki and the chief financial officer of BTI International’s parent company Broadcast Text International, Mr Henrik Wikrén, stated that terms of employment cannot be discussed during the transition period. Wikrén was completely unable to say anything about the situation after February 2013, even as the current collective agreement that ensures certain level of employment to the translators will run out in early 2013. In other words, in all of the meetings the translators were told nothing about the plans of their new employer, despite the numerous inquiries by both the translators themselves and their union representative.
So far only a fraction of the former MTV Media translators have received the offer from BTI International Oy, and completely contrary to what Ms Kaurismäki claims, the terms are nowhere near the salaries of the MTV Media contracts. At a first glance, the monthly salary of 2,800 euros may seem reasonable when compared to the MTV Media collective contract agreement; in MTV Media contract the entry-level monthly wages salaries are 3,040.33 euros for translators and 3,362.80 euros for editor-translators. Corresponding figures in the collective agreement for translation agencies in the AV sector are, respectively, 2,970 euros and 3,284 euros. The differences between these two collective agreements and the BTI International offer initially seem relatively small, but they are in truth extremely large when BTI International’s demands on daily work rate and its effect on the salary comparison is taken into account.
It was assumed that MTV's established translators would translate approximately 17 minutes of broadcast-ready screen text per working day. According to BTI International's offer, a translator is expected to produce at least 30 minutes of finished text per working day. If it is assumed that 21 working days is required for to gain a monthly salary, approximately 360 minutes of finished translation is produced following MTV Media's terms. In BTI International the corresponding amount is 630 minutes. Therefore the price of one translated minute would be under MTV's terms approximately 8.3 euros and under BTI International's 4.5 euros. Thus in practice the work pace is doubled at the same time as the salary drops lower than the entry level salary provided in the collective agreement, and the real salary is almost halved when the accelerated work pace is taken into consideration.
In the case of the transfer of business, the approximate work experience of the translators who moved to the service of the new employer was approximately 15 years, and therefore there are no beginners amongst us. That is why the monthly salary of 2,800 euros is an unreasonable offer for many translators who have acquired extensive work experience and have a high quality education as the offer does not take into consideration experience and seniority payments. An established translator who has worked for a longer period of time for MTV Media earns approximately 3,500 euros per month and therefore BTI International's offer for monthly salary is very low even without the minute price comparison.
Additionally, we are concerned of the treatment and the terms of employment of the freelance translators of BTI. They have been forced to operate as entrepreneurs although they might not have commissions from any other party. The compensation is small – at best clearly less than third of the level of the freelancers working under MTV Media’s and YLE's collective agreement called Yhtyneet-sopimus – so in order to gain basic living they have to, at worst, toil over 60-hour work weeks which also extend to the weekend. The risk of entrepreneurship is thus outsourced completely from the translation agency to its translators without counterpart. Additionally, in return for a single, very low translation fee the translation agency demands all copyrights that can be relinquished, after which it can freely resell the translations when the translator is left with nothing.
Only some of the resigned translators received an open letter from the company in which the company wanted to share their view on the information that has been circling around in the media lately. The information on translation fees published in newspaper articles and news is based on current table of fees of the freelance translators' of the parent company of BTI International Oy, Broadcast Text International Oy. Therefore the information available in public is not incorrect and misleading like Ms Kaurismäki claims but are based on real calculations.
Managing Director Kaurismäki also proclaimed in the message sent to the translators an aspiration to strengthen the cooperation between the company and the translators in order to develop the whole subtitling industry. We are puzzled into which direction the field should develop in BTI International Oy's view when its parent company has never wanted to comply with the collective agreements nor to even negotiate them, and when it demands its translators such a work pace which inevitably deteriorates the quality of the translations, not to mention the working conditions of the translators.
The 98 freelance translators who have resigned from the service of BTI International Oy
Δική μου παρατήρηση: Μάνα, γιατί δεν με γέννησες στη Φινλανδία!!!
Subtitlers from audiovisual translation agencies join the cause
14.11.2012
133 more subtitlers join those who resigned from Broadcast Text in demanding better working conditions to the audiovisual translation field.
Freelance translators of the audiovisual translation agencies have had enough
Since MTV Media outsourced its translation operations to Broadcast Text International Oy's subsidiary BTI International Oy on October 1st 2012, Finland's audiovisual translation field in its entirety is in danger of being sucked into a vortex of insufficient salaries from which there is no return. We who have worked as freelancers for the audiovisual translation agencies know how hard it is to make a living with the current fees provided by our employers - it is practically impossible to build a lifelong career on them. Therefore we want to express our support to the translators who were outsourced by MTV Media and who resigned from BTI International Oy.
For over ten years now Broadcast Text International Oy has paid its freelance translators fees that do not enable subtitling to be done in a reasonable timeframe and in a meticulous way. The deadlines are so tight that even the long programs are expected to be finished within 24 hours or even faster, even though a finalised translation requires considerably more time due the background work required to find linguistic equivalents in the target language. This inevitably influences the quality the employers and clients are demanding, while at the same time the working conditions of the translators are far from reasonable. The average salaries of highly educated people are way beyond our reach with these fees even though translating is considered to be specialist work.
In addition, most freelance translators have been forced to become entrepreneurs, which means all the entrepreneur's labour costs are paid by the translator. Thus the entrepreneur's risk has been fully outsourced from the agency to us translators without any reimbursement. Furthermore, when all the translators' copyrights that can be relinquished are claimed by the agency without any reimbursement, they are then able to resell the translator's work in perpetuity while the translator is left empty handed. This means the working pace is extremely tight and unhealthy often requiring working days in excess of 10 hours as well as weekends in order for the translator to make a living that is on a par to current average income levels in Finland.
The translators have also been systematically kept in the dark about their colleagues by e.g. withholding all contact information, so that any attempts at organising the translator community to discuss the working conditions could be inhibited. The organisation of the translators is naturally the first step of any effort to create common and permanent agreements about the working conditions. However, the Finnish Audiovisual Translators’ forum (www.av-kaantajat.fi), formed four years ago, and particularly this autumn’s events have united the vast majority of all Finnish audiovisual translators, regardless of their employer. This development has fostered a wide-ranging discussion about the fair and unfair employers within the audiovisual translation field.
Broadcast Text International is far from being the only translation agency trampling on the working conditions. This unfortunate category contains a plethora of agencies including e.g. SDI Media, PrimeText, Softitler and many other international translation agencies. In 2010 the negotiations for a collective labour agreement of audiovisual translation agencies offered a glimmer of hope that the dire situation could be rectified, but very soon it became apparent that Broadcast Text International was not willing to negotiate at all. BTI simply stated that Yhtyneet-agreement, the collective agreement at MTV Media and YLE which served as the basis of the negotiations, is so utopian that the negotiations are pointless.
SDI Media and Pre-Text also took part in the collective labour agreement negotiations of 2010, and the former withdrew from the negotiations just before the signing of the agreement. Pre-Text is the only completely Finnish agency and also the only one to sign the collective labour agreement. Freelancers at the other agencies were immensely disappointed, since they had expressed their wishes for better terms quite openly and on multiple occasions. The agencies, however, have never reacted to these wishes with anything else than empty promises and delaying tactics.
A collective labour agreement would benefit all the players of the audiovisual translation field, but such an agreement seems to be an anathema to the agencies. Collective labour agreements are, however, a common feature of the Finnish labour market, and we cannot see such an agreement hindering the agencies. When the working conditions of the audiovisual translators are secured to a reasonable level, the agencies will no longer compete on how cheaply they can get somebody to deliver their clients’ translations, and instead they will compete with the quality of their translation teams. It should never be forgotten that demanding work requires both reasonable amount of time and reasonable pay.
Signed by 133 subtitlers
http://www.av-kaantajat.fi/in_english/?x245667=350312
14.11.2012
133 more subtitlers join those who resigned from Broadcast Text in demanding better working conditions to the audiovisual translation field.
Freelance translators of the audiovisual translation agencies have had enough
Since MTV Media outsourced its translation operations to Broadcast Text International Oy's subsidiary BTI International Oy on October 1st 2012, Finland's audiovisual translation field in its entirety is in danger of being sucked into a vortex of insufficient salaries from which there is no return. We who have worked as freelancers for the audiovisual translation agencies know how hard it is to make a living with the current fees provided by our employers - it is practically impossible to build a lifelong career on them. Therefore we want to express our support to the translators who were outsourced by MTV Media and who resigned from BTI International Oy.
For over ten years now Broadcast Text International Oy has paid its freelance translators fees that do not enable subtitling to be done in a reasonable timeframe and in a meticulous way. The deadlines are so tight that even the long programs are expected to be finished within 24 hours or even faster, even though a finalised translation requires considerably more time due the background work required to find linguistic equivalents in the target language. This inevitably influences the quality the employers and clients are demanding, while at the same time the working conditions of the translators are far from reasonable. The average salaries of highly educated people are way beyond our reach with these fees even though translating is considered to be specialist work.
In addition, most freelance translators have been forced to become entrepreneurs, which means all the entrepreneur's labour costs are paid by the translator. Thus the entrepreneur's risk has been fully outsourced from the agency to us translators without any reimbursement. Furthermore, when all the translators' copyrights that can be relinquished are claimed by the agency without any reimbursement, they are then able to resell the translator's work in perpetuity while the translator is left empty handed. This means the working pace is extremely tight and unhealthy often requiring working days in excess of 10 hours as well as weekends in order for the translator to make a living that is on a par to current average income levels in Finland.
The translators have also been systematically kept in the dark about their colleagues by e.g. withholding all contact information, so that any attempts at organising the translator community to discuss the working conditions could be inhibited. The organisation of the translators is naturally the first step of any effort to create common and permanent agreements about the working conditions. However, the Finnish Audiovisual Translators’ forum (www.av-kaantajat.fi), formed four years ago, and particularly this autumn’s events have united the vast majority of all Finnish audiovisual translators, regardless of their employer. This development has fostered a wide-ranging discussion about the fair and unfair employers within the audiovisual translation field.
Broadcast Text International is far from being the only translation agency trampling on the working conditions. This unfortunate category contains a plethora of agencies including e.g. SDI Media, PrimeText, Softitler and many other international translation agencies. In 2010 the negotiations for a collective labour agreement of audiovisual translation agencies offered a glimmer of hope that the dire situation could be rectified, but very soon it became apparent that Broadcast Text International was not willing to negotiate at all. BTI simply stated that Yhtyneet-agreement, the collective agreement at MTV Media and YLE which served as the basis of the negotiations, is so utopian that the negotiations are pointless.
SDI Media and Pre-Text also took part in the collective labour agreement negotiations of 2010, and the former withdrew from the negotiations just before the signing of the agreement. Pre-Text is the only completely Finnish agency and also the only one to sign the collective labour agreement. Freelancers at the other agencies were immensely disappointed, since they had expressed their wishes for better terms quite openly and on multiple occasions. The agencies, however, have never reacted to these wishes with anything else than empty promises and delaying tactics.
A collective labour agreement would benefit all the players of the audiovisual translation field, but such an agreement seems to be an anathema to the agencies. Collective labour agreements are, however, a common feature of the Finnish labour market, and we cannot see such an agreement hindering the agencies. When the working conditions of the audiovisual translators are secured to a reasonable level, the agencies will no longer compete on how cheaply they can get somebody to deliver their clients’ translations, and instead they will compete with the quality of their translation teams. It should never be forgotten that demanding work requires both reasonable amount of time and reasonable pay.
Signed by 133 subtitlers
http://www.av-kaantajat.fi/in_english/?x245667=350312
Η ολοκλήρωση του παραπάνω θέματος:
Audiovisual translators and translation agencies reach a collective agreement in Finland – agreement left unsigned by one company
18.6.2015
After a negotiating process that was drawn out for more than five years, the Finnish audiovisual translation field now has a collective agreement. The agreement meets the most important goals of the translators. One translation agency, SDI Media, did not sign the agreement.
The collective agreement for the audiovisual translation field was signed by the trade unions representing translators, the Union of Journalists in Finland and Akava Special Branches, as well as by the following translation agencies: BTI Studios, Pre-Text, Rosmer International and Stellar Text. In addition, Saga Vera is currently in negotiations to join the agreement. One agency, SDI Media, did not sign the agreement and, therefore, its employees are not under an obligation to maintain industrial peace.
– “We made the impossible possible. This collective agreement is a fine achievement after negotiations that ran for over five years during which the composition of participants at the table changed over time”, comments Petri Savolainen, Director of at the Union of Journalists in Finland.
– “The collective agreement cuts short the tailspin that the industry has been in and launches its revival. This achievement demonstrates how employees and employers that respect the quality of work can together develop their field in a way beneficial to all parties”, says Helena Lamponen, Lobbying Manager at Akava Special Branches.
– “This agreement meets the most important goals of the translators”, Helena Lamponen and Petri Savolainen comment further on the content of the agreement.
The agreement contains a scheduled programme to raise salaries and fees in increments during the contract period. Agreeing on using subtitle count as fee criterion is an important stipulation for the translators. Previously, fees were often based on programme running time, which did not take the translators’ workload into account. Another important condition included in the new agreement concerns the copyright compensations for employed freelancers.
– It is the shared objective of all parties to reach a uniform level for all translation fees during the next round of negotiations, says Petri Savolainen.
– Additionally, it is extremely important for the Union of Journalists that when providing translations for the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, the Yhtyneet collective agreement is adhered to in all cases regardless of whether the work is done by permanent employees, employed freelancers or subcontractors.
The collective agreement entered into force on May Day, May 1 2015 and will be in force until the end of year 2017. On June 12, 2015, Saga Vera, a translation agency based in Oulu, Finland, joined the agreement.
An open letter to SDI Media from Finnish audiovisual translators
In a surprising turn, SDI Media, who participated in the collective agreement negotiations for the audiovisual translation field from the beginning, did not sign the agreement. Therefore, translators employed by SDI are not bound by the terms and conditions of the agreement. The same applies to the industrial peace that the new agreement brings to the field. As long as the obligation to maintain industrial peace does not apply to SDI’s translators, they have the right to take industrial action. Finnish audiovisual translators have sent an appeal to the SDI management to encourage the company to sign the new agreement without delay. In two days, the open letter was signed by 235 audiovisual translators.
On May 25, the trade unions issued application boycott on SDI Media after the agency did not sign the collective agreement by May 1. The boycott, being a legal industrial action, is in force until further notice, and means, in practice, that the unions advise their members to refrain from applying for positions within SDI Media.
An open letter to translation customers from Finnish audiovisual translators
On June 15, Finnish audiovisual translators sent an open letter signed by 292 individuals to the customers of the translation agencies urging them to encourage their translation providers to adhere to the terms and conditions, as well as the spirit, of the new collective agreement and to sign it as soon as possible, if they have not yet done so. This appeal emphasizes the need to restore the whole audiovisual translation field back to being an industry of skilled professionals providing high-quality subtitles, which Finnish audiences have been used to for several decades. In order to do this, salaries, fees and other labour terms need to be reasonable and the same to all.
Alarmingly, BTI Studios, the one large multinational translation agency that did sign the agreement, commenced co-operation negotiations with its employees with the aim of reducing a sizeable portion of its permanent workforce. The recent result of these negotiations is the laying off of 4 translators from the parent company and 9 translators from its Finnish subsidiary. In addition to this, the agency is known for widely using subcontractor translators, whose terms are a far cry from the terms and conditions of the new collective agreement.
The open letter sent to translation agency customers is available in English here.
The appeal sent to SDI management is available in Finnish here.
For further information, please contact:
Helena Lamponen, Lobbying Manager at Akava Special Branches, tel. +358 40 631 7660
Petri Savolainen, Director at Union of Journalists in Finland, tel. +358 50 534 24 85
Audiovisual translators and translation agencies reach a collective agreement in Finland – agreement left unsigned by one company
18.6.2015
After a negotiating process that was drawn out for more than five years, the Finnish audiovisual translation field now has a collective agreement. The agreement meets the most important goals of the translators. One translation agency, SDI Media, did not sign the agreement.
The collective agreement for the audiovisual translation field was signed by the trade unions representing translators, the Union of Journalists in Finland and Akava Special Branches, as well as by the following translation agencies: BTI Studios, Pre-Text, Rosmer International and Stellar Text. In addition, Saga Vera is currently in negotiations to join the agreement. One agency, SDI Media, did not sign the agreement and, therefore, its employees are not under an obligation to maintain industrial peace.
– “We made the impossible possible. This collective agreement is a fine achievement after negotiations that ran for over five years during which the composition of participants at the table changed over time”, comments Petri Savolainen, Director of at the Union of Journalists in Finland.
– “The collective agreement cuts short the tailspin that the industry has been in and launches its revival. This achievement demonstrates how employees and employers that respect the quality of work can together develop their field in a way beneficial to all parties”, says Helena Lamponen, Lobbying Manager at Akava Special Branches.
– “This agreement meets the most important goals of the translators”, Helena Lamponen and Petri Savolainen comment further on the content of the agreement.
The agreement contains a scheduled programme to raise salaries and fees in increments during the contract period. Agreeing on using subtitle count as fee criterion is an important stipulation for the translators. Previously, fees were often based on programme running time, which did not take the translators’ workload into account. Another important condition included in the new agreement concerns the copyright compensations for employed freelancers.
– It is the shared objective of all parties to reach a uniform level for all translation fees during the next round of negotiations, says Petri Savolainen.
– Additionally, it is extremely important for the Union of Journalists that when providing translations for the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, the Yhtyneet collective agreement is adhered to in all cases regardless of whether the work is done by permanent employees, employed freelancers or subcontractors.
The collective agreement entered into force on May Day, May 1 2015 and will be in force until the end of year 2017. On June 12, 2015, Saga Vera, a translation agency based in Oulu, Finland, joined the agreement.
An open letter to SDI Media from Finnish audiovisual translators
In a surprising turn, SDI Media, who participated in the collective agreement negotiations for the audiovisual translation field from the beginning, did not sign the agreement. Therefore, translators employed by SDI are not bound by the terms and conditions of the agreement. The same applies to the industrial peace that the new agreement brings to the field. As long as the obligation to maintain industrial peace does not apply to SDI’s translators, they have the right to take industrial action. Finnish audiovisual translators have sent an appeal to the SDI management to encourage the company to sign the new agreement without delay. In two days, the open letter was signed by 235 audiovisual translators.
On May 25, the trade unions issued application boycott on SDI Media after the agency did not sign the collective agreement by May 1. The boycott, being a legal industrial action, is in force until further notice, and means, in practice, that the unions advise their members to refrain from applying for positions within SDI Media.
An open letter to translation customers from Finnish audiovisual translators
On June 15, Finnish audiovisual translators sent an open letter signed by 292 individuals to the customers of the translation agencies urging them to encourage their translation providers to adhere to the terms and conditions, as well as the spirit, of the new collective agreement and to sign it as soon as possible, if they have not yet done so. This appeal emphasizes the need to restore the whole audiovisual translation field back to being an industry of skilled professionals providing high-quality subtitles, which Finnish audiences have been used to for several decades. In order to do this, salaries, fees and other labour terms need to be reasonable and the same to all.
Alarmingly, BTI Studios, the one large multinational translation agency that did sign the agreement, commenced co-operation negotiations with its employees with the aim of reducing a sizeable portion of its permanent workforce. The recent result of these negotiations is the laying off of 4 translators from the parent company and 9 translators from its Finnish subsidiary. In addition to this, the agency is known for widely using subcontractor translators, whose terms are a far cry from the terms and conditions of the new collective agreement.
The open letter sent to translation agency customers is available in English here.
The appeal sent to SDI management is available in Finnish here.
For further information, please contact:
Helena Lamponen, Lobbying Manager at Akava Special Branches, tel. +358 40 631 7660
Petri Savolainen, Director at Union of Journalists in Finland, tel. +358 50 534 24 85