{"id":111,"date":"2011-02-06T23:24:45","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T23:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cbavington.com\/blog\/?p=111"},"modified":"2026-09-01T17:50:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:50:32","slug":"no-peanuts-no-thanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/06\/no-peanuts-no-thanks\/","title":{"rendered":"No peanuts? – no thanks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, in the interests of tying up loose ends, in this case from the comments section in my own Nov 2010 blog post “Who sets prices?”<\/a>, I think I’ve managed to crystallise the logic behind my instinctive rejection of initiatives like those mentioned – No peanuts, the italia.it petition crew, the United Translators group on Yahoo!… there may be others that have passed me by.<\/p>\n

The common underlying theme, it seems to me, could be summed as some need to unionise, join forces against The Man and suchlike. No Peanuts makes specific reference to a “living wage” and while I’m happy to accept it’s likely just a convenient shorthand, it also perhaps reveals a certain mindset.<\/p>\n

I would suggest there are essentially two groups of people who need protection against exploitation by those on whom they rely for income:
\n1. Those who can be easily replaced. Unions were largely started by unskilled workers, fearful of being replaced at the drop of hat with no safety net if and when they refused to work longer hours, take a pay cut, etc.
\n2. Those who, no matter how skilled, only have one income source (read “employer” in most cases), such as those working for the public-sector – teachers, health workers, and nationalised industry generally.<\/p>\n

(Yes, some poor souls may be in both groups at once.) I am more than happy, morally and economically speaking, to support solidarity for groups of people with fewer choices and opportunities in life. However, I am not convinced that freelance translators fall into either category. There really seems little prospect in the immediate short term that all translation will fall into the hands of one agency, or even a coterie of agencies working in cahoots. And of course, while no-one is ever indispensable, we should all be striving not to be easily replaced; the internet is awash with advice to specialise, and it is one conclusion I draw in my own (rather long, admittedly) article on who sets translation prices<\/a>. If any of us is that easily dispensed with, we should either seek to remedy the situation sharpish, or consider whether our competitive advantage may in fact be found in some other form of income-generating activity…<\/p>\n

So much for the logical (to me, anyway!) argument against it.<\/p>\n

In practical terms, there are two further arguments:<\/p>\n

a) what, exactly, would be the terms and conditions to be applied worldwide and who would decide them? “Living wages” vary hugely, to say nothing of payment terms. While, AFAIK, none of these initiatives has in fact attempted to set or even recommend rates (which would be of doubtful legality in many countries), they are left merely exhorting us to charge decent and respectable prices that are enough to live on, which presumably is what people do anyway, otherwise they would do something else for a living. Or should. It must be said, there are some who do not, perhaps, act in the economically rational manner I would expect (translation is, unfortunately, plagued by those who are “passionate” about it, and seem prepared to suffer a dog’s abuse for the privilege of calling themselves translators – as touched upon by me (again) here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

b) who, exactly, would I be joining forces with? I estimate that about half the translations I’ve been given to proofread over the years are pretty substandard stuff. By inference, therefore, about half the (Fr-Eng) translators out there are people I would probably rather not be associated with. (And, as such, probably also fall into group 1) above of those easily replaced and who probably do feel under threat.)<\/p>\n

Translators are always banging on about being professionals, educated, and worthy of the respect given to architects and lawyers and suchlike. Most of us have the intellectual capacity not to be exploited or oppressed, and the ability and initiative to follow other paths if we prefer them or feel the (financial) need. You don’t see Norman Foster calling for a worldwide union to include no-hopers who would struggle to sketch a shed, and I am as yet unconvinced of the need to bind myself to a movement that, I feel, seems likely to include too many of the translation world’s equivalent. Feel free to disagree below…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again, in the interests of tying up loose ends, in this case from the comments section in my own Nov 2010 blog post “Who sets prices?”, I think I’ve managed to crystallise the logic behind my instinctive rejection of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbavington.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}