A highly specialised profession - There cannot be more than 4,500 to 5,000 practising professional conference interpreters in the world today covering all language combinations. It isn't so much that people do not want to become conference interpreters rather that the job calls for rare skills and a very high degree of specialisation. Quite apart from having a perfect command of both the language and the culture, being an interpreter means, inter alia, being able to think and react extremely quickly, having a very sound general culture, a very robust nervous system and knowing how to express oneself perfectly.

It takes a long time to train - In the leading Interpreting schools such as ETI in Geneva and ESIT in Paris, training in conference interpretation requires at least 6 years of academic achievement after which candidates have to attend post grad courses. To sign up for these courses one needs an MA or a degree in Translation and then one has to pass a very gruelling and highly selective admissions test. Typically, candidates need to be fully conversant with three, four or five languages. ETI in Geneva, which is the oldest and one of the better known schools in the world, delivers on average only 8 diplomas a year whereas it processes well over 150 applications.

An art of considerable complexity - An interpreter has to listen to a speaker, memorise every single word he says, make sense of it, translate it into a foreign language whilst keeping a very close check on the quality of the finished product with very little time to do so and with no time for corrections. Research has shown that conference interpreters perform eight tasks concurrently. As soon as the microphone is switched on, an interpreter musters all his skills, be they intellectual, linguistic, physical or psychological, into conveying the message a speaker is delivering. An interpreter's focused awareness is meticulously crafted as his attention must not stray for even a second; to achieve this is to defy nature itself and expose oneself to intellectual and physical depletion especially with speakers who read their presentations with foreign accents and interpreters having to man rundown booths with very poor sound quality. During a conference where speakers read their presentations, interpreters may have to translate the equivalent of 100 pages a day whereas translators only do 7 or 8.

Stress and tiredness - Conference interpreters are exposed to stress as a result of the sheer intensity and the inordinate difficulty of the job not to mention the responsibility of having to deliver a finished product where the slightest mistake can have serious consequences and also because the pace is imposed by the speaker. An interpreter works in real time. The resulting fatigue and stress just can not be compared to doing a job at one's own pace. Research has consistently and conclusively shown that simultaneous interpretation is hard to sustain for more than 30 minutes at a time without running the risk of impairing quality and being exposed to serious nervous fatigue. Hence, back in 1974, working conditions were based by the JAC (the Joint Advisory Committee) on criteria such as quality and health. JAC based its conclusions (still in force today) on a medical study commissioned by the United Nations. Our working conditions are not a luxury, they are the mainstay of our physical and mental health and the pillars that support the quality of the work we do.

Maximum performance - When an interpreter works eight three hour sessions in the space of five days, the performance he is delivering is 100 per cent as he interprets every single word. What more should he do ? For interpreters, the notion of « unproductive time » does not apply (adjournments and delays are not caused by interpreters) such is not the case for office staff, of course. Methods currently applied in the corporate setting to boost productivity are meaningless for a conference interpreter whose job, by its very nature, requires no more and no less than the maximum.

Flexibility - We are asked for "more flexibility". And yet no other category of staff shows more flexibility than interpreters who - when it is really necessary - never refuse to work for the extra quarter of an hour, the extra half hour, the extra hour, the extra half day when requested. Free-lance interpreters already work one meeting more per week than their permanent colleagues. In an emergency, interpreters are always there: recruited at the last moment, they report for work at 3 a.m. if need be, and they do so without getting any extra financial compensation. Organizations are asking us to be more flexible? How can one fail to see that, in fact, they already unilaterally impose working conditions that are in flagrant violation of the Agreement. The examples are legion: the duration of meetings exceeded on a regular basis, under-recruitment (two interpreters instead of three in two-way booths), artificially truncated contracts. These constant violations of the letter and the spirit of the Agreement have completely undermined trust among our colleagues. How can they now agree to make further concessions when the promise they were made at the last negotiations that henceforth "the letter and the spirit" of the Agreement would be respected by ending the practice of cutting up contracts has never been carried out?

The argument to the effect that we ought to "give something up" in our working conditions in order to get an adjustment in our remuneration - to which we have long been entitled - is absurd. To begin with, the general trend has been towards shorter working hours; besides, interpreters have already made many concessions over the years. Lastly, inasmuch as our workload had been defined by the United Nations in 1974 and has been confirmed since then in a whole series of official documents which are still in force, there is nothing that would justify an increase in that workload today. On this point, our permanent interpreter colleagues in the United Nations - in New York, in Geneva and in Vienna - have expressed their full solidarity with us.

Interpretations is expensive - This is an argument that is heard frequently. Interpretation services do represent a major item of expenditure. But the important issue is what they are being compared with. One should not forget that in all fields specialists are always expensive. An interpreter is a skilled professional whose training takes a long time, whose work is arduous, and who provides a highly specialized service. It is true that

interpreters do not "produce" anything other than communication among persons who otherwise would not understand one another. But then United Nations organizations are essentially a forum for an exchange of views and for discussions among representatives of Member States, and interpreters are an "investment" for the image of these organizations. Where would they be without interpreters? And, in terms of cost, has anyone ever thought of quantifying what instantaneous communication in six or eight languages represents at an international conference? Does a more cost-effective alternative exist?

Interpreters are overpaid - The organizations claim - however implausibly - that we are overpaid. But the fact is that today free-lance interpreters' remuneration in the common system is the lowest of all the agreements negotiated by AIIC. Moreover, the daily rate of pay does not tell the whole story: nowadays a free-lance interpreter works, on an average, 103 days a year [source: AIIC Statistical Report, 1998]. And, out of their pay, free-lance interpreters must finance their future retirement, their insurance cover, their holidays, the time they need to prepare for meetings, their training and refresher courses, and all the other expenses which, in the case of permanent staff, are borne by the United Nations. They do not have any guarantee of employment, and absolutely no career advancement prospects because remuneration does not rise with experience. Furthermore,

we should point out that in the agreements with the United Nations, remuneration was calculated at a time when the average duration of contracts was two to three weeks, whereas today it is four or five days. Thus, 8 meetings in 7 days have become, most of the time, 8 meetings in 5 days - in other words, 2 days' less pay for the same amount of work. Lastly, interpreter remuneration was frozen in 1995, and the freeze is still in effect.

Working conditions in constant deterioration - Since 1974, the working conditions of interpreters have deteriorated constantly. The duration of conferences has been considerably reduced, and as such meetings are a lot more concentrated than in the past. There is less and less free discussion. Instead we have sessions where delegates read written speeches in rapid succession since the time allotted to them keeps getting shorter. Meetings are becoming increasingly technical. As a result, the preparation time which is essential for the interpreter to carry out documentary research but is never remunerated, is proportionately longer. In many organisations, the equipment is old and the sound quality deplorable, making the work even more strenuous. Rarely do interpretation booths meet the minimum ISO standards with regard to size, sound prooffing and ventilation. In the place of qualified technicians we now often find temporary staff who rarely possess the requisite skills.

This is, by all counts, the worst time to be asking interpreters, who have made enormous concessions over the years, to be more « flexible » ! Is this the proper way to show appreciation for the considerable contribution made by this profession to the work of the international community within the UN system since its inception ? Is this really the right time, when you have so many and very important international conferences coming up, to begin putting to question a collective agreement which has helped to guarantee quality interpretation services and social peace in all the organisations ?

What are our expectations ?

Above all, we would like to have an agreement. That's why we are here. We are here, mandated by our colleagues, who are to-day more mobilised than ever before in the history of the profession, to negotiate in good faith and in all ernest. We wish to be treated with respect, as responsible partners.

We would like to have an equitable agreement, which would make it possible for us to continue serving organisations under proper conditions, to do our best without jeopardising our health.

We would like to have a just agreement based on the principle of « equal pay for equal work ». We interpret side by side with our permanent colleagues, doing exactly the same work. There is no reason why we should receive lesser terms.

We would like to have a substantial increase in remuneration. The current levels of pay are utterly out of sync with our qualifications and take no acount whatsoever of the increasingly taxing conditions in which we exercise our profession.

We would like an agrement which the organisations will honour, as much in letter as in spirit. We further wish to see withdrawn from the present text the numerous reservations which end up making it meaningless.

We would like to have an agreement that sets out, clearly and sustainably, our working conditions, which should not be put to question in totality and unjustifiably at each negotiation. We are ready to negotiate in a spirit of openness and flexibility. Should the need arise we could better manage the time at our disposal by setting up small working groups to sort out technical issues.

Finally, while expresing our appreciation to the CCAQ Secretariat for the record of the proceedings of the 10^th February meeting, we feel obliged to point out that it is no more than an approximate account of our deliberations. We therefore hope that the record of the meetings to-day and tomorrow will more faithfully reflect the content of our discussions.